


The Future is Bright

by socksock



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/M, Hero! Zelda, It's the Front Pack AU, Not the best combo, Role Swap AU, Zelda has amnesia, and a baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:40:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28351035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socksock/pseuds/socksock
Summary: Many heroes before her have defeated evil, but Zelda's the only one to do it with amnesia and a newborn baby.
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 123
Kudos: 385
Collections: Goldsmith's favorites





	1. Chapter 1

The wind in the leaves beats against Zelda’s face, barely shifting her long, thick plait of hair. She washed it last night for the occasion and got dressed this morning in almost full plate armor and Champion blues. The koroks around her rattle and coo, bobbing in a gentle dance that she realizes is a mimicry of her own—an instinctive, soothing movement that she picked up three weeks ago when she finally managed to get out of bed. 

To think she used to stand still for hours.

She takes a deep breath and wipes the sweat from her palms on the bulge of the front pack strapped to her chest.

Paya and Claree slip nervously closer, expecting to have to catch her. She's weak, yes. But she needs to do this. And now is the time.

She reaches out and grasps the hilt of the Master Sword.

The drain begins like a heartbeat— _guuk...guuk_ —a pulse of pain that shoots from her palms to her chest. Tightening, burning, building.

The sword slips, jerks upwards an inch.

The pain throbs harder and she squeezes her eyes closed, and she knows she would see spots if she opened them. Another inch, another burst of pain, and a thin cry builds against her breast, reminding her that she will be victorious. 

The future is bright.

The sword slides free, and the pain drops to only a reverberating echo as her eyes pop open. In awe, she shifts her grip to hold the sword towards the sky, the steel glinting, power flowing back into her body. The sword belongs in her hand. It's as if she's regained a limb she didn't know she'd lost. For the first time in weeks, she feels strong.

Paya sighs in relief.

There's another whimper against her chest, the baby cradled snug in the front pack nuzzling ineffectively against the padding. She drops her pose and tilts her head to smile down at his scrunched-up face. 

"I know, starshine, but did you see mama's new sword?"

She holds the hilt close to his face to show the shine of the cross guard, but there's another threatening whimper until she sheathes the sword and resumes her bouncing. The baby soothes almost instantly.

"Well," she says, turning to Paya and Claree. "I'd call that a success."

Claree beams, clapping her hands together. Paya looks exhausted.

#

The Woodland Tower glows blue as they come out of the Lost Woods, but there's been at least one blood moon since Zelda cleared out the horde of monsters at its base, so they sneak past as quietly as they can with three horses and a newborn.

The baby, of course, starts to fuss as soon as they're within sight of the old training camp. Impa's said several times that babies always sound louder when they're your own, but that probably applies more to Zelda being embarrassed when the baby cries in public than it is about not alerting hundreds of moblins to their location.

"I know, starshine. Would you like a story?” she asks, her voice low and soothing and happy. She softens her face, so he doesn't pick up on her anxiety and leaves the Sheikah to keep an eagle eye on the camp. “Did you know mama made that tower blue?

"It was magenta before and covered in malice, corrupted by the Calamity.” She wrinkles up her nose, hoping the face is funny enough to soften the story, even though he can understand neither the fear nor the humor. “ _All_ the towers were magenta when I first awoke. But every tower you see that's glowing blue, that's where I fought back the monsters that surrounded it, climbed it, and cleansed it, and the malice went away even if the monsters came back."

The baby is still fidgety and whimpering, blinking at where his fist is wrapped tight around her finger. She clothed him this morning in a thick hat that Nanna, the elderly Sheikah, knit for him. It’s white with red and purple edging. He hasn't quite uncurled yet, his hands still in fists and his toes bunched up. His legs are still curled up inside the front pack and his arms are tucked tight to his sides. He hasn't really changed all that much since he came out. He's just louder and harder to feed.

"The most _exciting_ tower was the one in Central Hyrule," she says. "It was the most _dangerous_ , and I was going to wait until I'd at least freed a few of the Divine Beasts. I thought I would perhaps wait until I was ready to head to the castle. But then I met a man named Pikango at a stable."

Claree snorts softly. None of the Sheikah appreciate Pikango's attempts to appear Sheikah. They find him so offensive that they refuse to even admit that he's been helpful on Zelda's journey.

"He paints pictures, and he's traveled aaaaall over Hyrule to find the most beautiful landscapes. So, I showed him the photo album in the Sheikah slate, and he was able to tell me where some of them were. I'd yet to find any of the locations in the pictures, and I remembered so little at the time—almost nothing!—that I decided to head straight into the heart of Hyrule. I wanted to remember.

"In the picture, there's a town with the tower glowing blue in the center of a town square. Pikango had trouble recognizing it because the town isn't there anymore. There was just a lake of malice and a dozen turret guardians, some half sunk into the glowing tar. I didn't feel ready, and I even considered turning back. But then I thought of the memory waiting for me—only twelve guardians and a purified tower away. I thought of the blue light that would shine over the heart of Hyrule. I thought about the voice from the castle that I can sometimes hear when an area is cleansed enough for his voice to reach me.”

Her eyes drift towards the Woodland Tower, and her mind drifts to wondering if the prince can hear her now, if she’s recounting this story to him as well.

It’s foolish of her, but she sits a bit higher in her saddle, and her voice gets more dramatic even if the volume of the tale doesn’t increase. "I slipped down the ridge as quietly as I could, sneaking my way to the first guardian. It's strange to sneak up on a guardian, to stand so close to something so deadly, knowing it could turn at any moment.” She gooses the baby’s side, but he just squirms and whines up at her.

"I held my breath until it was looking away, then I locked it in place with stasis. I had scant seconds before the chains broke, and I whipped out my bow, wedged the point beneath the guardian, and shot. The chains broke and the guardian flipped over onto its side. I had the attention of several other guardians then, their laser eyes on my armor, but I didn't give them time to fire on me. I dashed forward with the slate, slapping it to the exposed underbelly of the guardian.

"It took a moment to take effect, a moment in which the guardians around me charged, their whines building higher and _higher_ , just like yours does! But the underside of the guardian changed color, the magenta flickering out, then glowing blue. The insides of the guardian still needed to turn over, needed to ‘reboot’ Purah calls it. But my work was done, and I ducked behind a wall to disappear from the guardians' sight.

"All the guardian’s sight but one. There was one red dot resting on my chest. So I pulled out my shield and faced it. The charging guardian was immobile across the lake of malice, but it was staring straight at me, it's eye glowing into a bright, white ball. It shot. I held steady. Then at the perfect moment, I shoved my shield against the blast so it bounced back across the lake, and the guardian exploded."

The baby is thoroughly distracted from his fussing. It’s not surprising as he likes to look at her face and hear the sound of her voice. She can tell Paya and Claree are listening too.

"I moved around the tower, neutralizing some guardians and destroying others. I kept going until the stalker arrived.

"Stalkers have long octorock legs, and snapping claws, and they move about. With four dots on my back, I froze the stalker and ran towards it, skidding beneath it as the chains broke. The turret guardians at the tower lost sight of me, and the one above me spun around in confusion. I had to crouch and try to stay with it, keeping the slate pressed against it as it stumbled around.

"But the guardian’s programming turned over, and a new display popped up on the slate: leg movement, head rotation, laser. I had it lift itself higher so I didn't have to crouch as much, and I aimed it back towards the tower. Every guardian eye was on us, and I had the stalker take out the turrets as quickly as possible. Explosions surrounded the tower’s base, _boom boom boom boom_! A blast crashed against my stalker, and I ducked as it rocked backwards. But we righted ourselves and kept shooting, _boom boom boom, boom_.” With the sound of every explosion, she jiggles the baby’s hand.

"When the coast was clear, I popped out from underneath it, and patted the guardian’s side, because he was a very good boy, even if he was simply following his programming.

"There wasn't a good way to cross the lake of malice, so I climbed up on top of the guardian, finding my feet on the flat part of its head and holding onto its crown. Guardians have a smooth gait as they walk. Much smoother than a horse. And it glided into the lake, its legs sinking into the muck. It took me to the base of the tower, then went about its business patrolling while I climbed.”

They pass the old training camp, Woodland Stable inching into view. The baby has dozed off. Not the deep sleeps he has after eating, but a light one where he'll wake up soon and want attention. She rubs his back.

"You're so funny bragging to a baby," Claree says, a bright smile on her face. 

"He likes a good scary story," Zelda says. He still has a firm grip on her finger, and she doesn't have the heart to pull free.

Paya speaks up for the first time since they left the Lost Woods. "You said...that sometimes you can hear P-prince Link. Did-Did you hear him at the top of the tower?"

Zelda keeps her eyes on the baby. He has exceptionally thick eyelashes and pudgy cheeks that she wants to touch all the time. Sometimes looking at him fills her with so much love that she knows there must be something chemical to it.

"Yes," she says. "I heard him."

"What did he say?"

"He asked me to remember."


	2. Chapter 2

Here is a non-exhaustive list of things Zelda knows because people have told her:

  1. Her name is Zelda, and she is twenty-two years old or 122 years old, depending on how you count.
  2. She was in the Royal Guard and appointed to be the crown prince's personal guard. Impa tells her that it was quite the honor.
  3. At some point, she pulled the Master Sword from the Korok Forest, which cemented her as the Hylian Champion along with four other Champions across Hyrule. It also cemented that the Calamity was coming. Within her lifetime, she and the other Champions would have to face an ancient evil. They would defeat it or lose Hyrule.
  4. They did not defeat it. They lost Hyrule. All the other Champions died.



#

They stop at the Woodland Stable to rest. She wants to press on—or, more accurately, she wishes she could push on. She doesn't want to admit that she's exhausted and sore all over, but then again she doesn't have to. The Sheikah's main role on this adventure seems to be forcing her to rest.

Claree takes care of the horses while Paya and Zelda head into the stable, Paya arranging lodging and food while Zelda collapses into a seat at a table. It's busy, but not crowded. There are other travelers, a salesman, and a traveling bard set up in the corner. Zelda pops the baby’s hat off and smooths down his poof of thin, blond hair that now stands up with static. She unbuckles the front pack, and Paya reappears to take the baby in time for her to take the pack all the way off and slip her blue tabard from her shoulders. Claree appears with their bags and digs through to pull out the big Sheikah shawl that Impa gave her just to provide some privacy while she unbuttons the thick, quilted shirt of padding and light chain mail that she wears under her armor. 

The hungry baby fusses, and she takes him into her arms, tucks him close, then offers up a prayer of thanks that he latches so easily. They were _very_ bad at this a week ago. 

Paya makes a small gesture with her hand—her own prayer of thanks that Zelda's not going to cry again.

"I think we're getting the hang of this," Zelda says. She wraps the shawl more tightly around them and settles back into their seat. A few minutes later, their food arrives. The woman that hands them their meals gives Zelda a warm smile and an extra glass of juice.

"He's precious. What's his name?"

"He doesn't have one yet," Zelda says. "Nothing really fits."

"She's dragging her feet. But the _rest_ of us call him Jamie," Claree interjects. "Because James is _a good, strong name, and I think she should consider it_."

Zelda pointedly ignores her. The inn-keeper finds this amusing.

A bard on the other side of the stable finishes tuning his lute, and strums a chord loud enough to draw attention. Conversation quiets as he begins to sing.

_Hylia, Hylia, give us a princess / The queen is dead and left only a son / Hylia, Hylia, give us your blessings / Your golden power can save everyone._

The crowd groans good-naturedly. Zelda rolls her eyes. She's heard this drinking song a few times now at other stables. The fact that she knows the words to the chorus tells her that the song was written before the Calamity struck. She doesn’t know what to make of that. Did she used to sing along? 

The song starts slow like a ballad, but picks up speed and complexity before rolling into a string of verses, which each bard seems to invent himself. And that's where the song takes a turn. It's not actually a prayer to the Goddess or a remorseful tune about their country's sad fate. It's a bawdy drinking song about the prince's many attempts to produce a female heir and the many women with whom such attempts were made.

When did she sing along? Before she became his guard? Before she became one of the women who slept with him?

This bard rhymes "Calamity" with "profanity," which is slightly interesting, but then he ends the first line of the next couplet with "thick," and her assessment of him drops. When the next verse is about a farmer's daughter who took care of the cuccos, she rates him a C+ and tunes out.

Claree laughs, half startled, half amused. "What is this? This is so absurd!" Her head bobs along with the beat.

Claree is an accomplished fighter and seamstress, and she's lived a full, sociable life. She's experienced love and loss. But at the same time, like most of the younger generation of Sheikah, she’s barely left Kakariko, and the wider world is still new and exciting. 

It's rare for Zelda to feel more worldly than anyone else (despite evidence to the contrary). And she enjoys experiencing Claree's shock and delight. Zelda was more disoriented than enthusiastic when she first saw the novelties of Hyrule. Claree’s joy at hearing the ridiculous song softens Zelda’s dislike of it.

Much to the baby’s annoyance, she slips a finger between his gums and pops him off, quickly switching him to the other side before he can cry too violently.

Unlike Claree, Paya has turned bright red. She leans across the table to hiss, "Th-this is...it's disrespectful!"

Claree waves her off. "It's just a song."

"A s-song about our reigning monarch, who s-sacrificed the last h-hundred y-years of his life to shield us from the-the Calamity."

"You're such a wet blanket."

"It's v-vulgar! There's—There’s—“ She gestures at Zelda in exasperation, but when Zelda simply stares at her, she huffs and switches gears to, “Jamie is _listening_!" 

The baby has not noticed at all. 

And suddenly they're both looking at Zelda again, as if expecting her to have an opinion. She looks away and shrugs one shoulder. "I don't know if Prince Link would mind. As far as I remember, he used to encourage this kind of thing."

Paya turns a brighter shade of red and stares at her a moment longer. She whips around to glare at the bard. “I mind,” she says. She slips a shuriken from her sleeve and taps it menacingly against the tabletop until the bard notices and wraps the song up in a hurry. Zelda’s chest floods with a warmth she doesn’t want to investigate too thoroughly.

The bard shifts into something instrumental, and Zelda finishes her dinner, trying not to think about the prince. She sucks the salt from her fingertips and pushes her clean plate away, shifting in her seat enough to draw her new sword, lay it on the table, and inspect her new blade. 

She remembers it in a way, remembers how it felt in her hand, remembers the weight of it, the familiarity of it. The warm hum in her hand is familiar, although she never picked that detail out from any of her memories. Her memories also haven’t allowed her to appreciate the color, the way she can see her reflection in the steel. She hasn't had the opportunity to appreciate the green and purple ribbons of leather that cross over the grip. She's never really noticed that there's a big gem in the center of the hilt. She'd worry about carrying something so flashy, except she carried it in her memories and never noticed it, so perhaps it's not that distracting. And it's really not the stone that makes the sword magnificent. 

She strokes her fingers over the blade the same way she strokes her son's hair.

She has a memory of the prince asking her if the sword speaks to her. His enthusiasm and curiosity were overwhelming in the bright sunshine. It was the first memory where she could remember an emotion to go with the event, the first time she felt as if she wasn’t just watching from the outside. 

She’d felt guilt. And fear. The sword didn’t speak to her. 

Perhaps it will now.

She doubts it.

Paya and Claree have gone silent. They avert their eyes as if trying to give her privacy. It's funny because her shirt is only half on, and they didn't bat an eye at that.

The baby’s gone to sleep, and she props him on her shoulder and pats his back to burp him.

“You look tired,” Paya says.

She nods, exhausted.

“Go sleep,” Claree says. “Want me to take him?”

“No.” Zelda sighs. “I think we’re going to bed.”

The Sheikah nod, and she stands, sheathes her sword, and heads to the bed they’ve rented.

They have a basket just for the baby to sleep in, and she sets it on the bed and sets him in it on his back before swaddling him up. She kicks off her boots and a fair bit of armor, slips the Master Sword under her pillow, and then climbs under the sheets. She curls around the baby, and if she uses two pillows, she can watch the way he breathes. She's exhausted, and yet she can't stop staring at his little, squished in nose and his sweep of thin hair.

She _made_ him.

She understands now why the younger generations know so little about the Calamity. She hopes to never describe the memory that she found at the base of Central Tower to him.

With the malice gone from the bottom of the tower, the area held some resemblance to the town in the image on her slate. She could make out the faint pattern of cobblestones, and the ghostly shells of walls. After circling, she finally came to a spot where the tower looked correct. The picture was taken at night, so she didn't have the tower's shadow as a clue. And maybe that rise used to be the wall of this building in the picture, and the cobblestones stretched a little farther there, down what used to be a road, and—

Her breath caught as the sounds of battle fell on her like a wall—shouting, clashes of metal, explosions. She was running beside the prince, the sword glowing blue in her hand, the ground shaking under their feet. The town crumbled around them, buildings collapsing as they ran, walls blown out behind them. People ran past them, heading the opposite direction, brief shouts to come with them before they dashed out of sight. The prince choked on a cloud of dust and he vaulted over a wall that had spilled into the road, and then they were spit out of the narrow street and into the square around the tower. 

The buildings around them burned. The ground had surged up in layered sheets, the cobblestone road titled into a series of ridges at a staggering angle. She didn’t want to know what kind of weapon had done that kind of damage. 

Together they leapt over the first ridge and ducked behind it. She landed crouched and ready to fight. He had the Sheikah slate in his hands, flipping wildly through the screens.

"Lower the tower, lower the tower, lower the tower." His face and clothes were streaked with dirt and soot and dust. His short hair was a mess. "It's already taken over the guardians and the—the Divine Beasts.” He blinked a few times, not letting the thought land. “If it gets the towers too—"

“Work faster,” she warned.

“I think you have to—“

The building across the square exploded, and she threw herself down to shield him with her body, blocking him from the heat and debris. When the tremors eased, her head snapped up to look over his head and face the guardian entering the square. In the thick cloud of smoke it was only a dark shadow and hovering swirls of magenta, indistinct except for its eye which stood out, brilliant and terrifying. 

She stood from her crouch over him, taking a defensive stance as the red beam of its laser landed on her forehead, then her chest.

He grabbed at her belt. “We have to—“

“Stay down,” she snapped, and threw herself back over the ridge, running full tilt toward the guardian as it began to whine.

“We don’t have time!”

She plunged the sword into the guardian’s eye, then yanked it out and slashed at a leg, then spun to slash another, the machine dragging itself to the side, charging, charging, charging, Boom. The shot was so close that she had only a split second to lift her shield, only a split second to jump back as the explosion hit home, shattering the guardian into a ball of fire and flying metal. Its parts rained down over her.

Then she was racing back to the prince, grabbing the slate from his hands.

“This one I think—"

“But that says—"

“It’s not working—"

Sound tore at the air as a ball of fire hurtled over their heads, and she threw her arms over his head, curling over him as it crashed into the tower. For a moment, it did nothing. 

And then pink crawled down the stalk.

“Run.”

She yanked him to his feet, grabbed his hand, and dragged him from the square as thick, glowing ooze welled up from the base of the tower like puss from a wound. They burst out of the town in time to see another ball of malice crash into the Ridgeland Tower, and she darted a look towards the castle to see other fireballs flying eastward. 

She and the prince collapsed when they reached the ridge above the town, overlooking the great tree stump. They turned to look out over the country.

Castle Town was in flames. As were all the towns across the central plain. The whole landscape was choked in smoke. The castle and the towers glowed an ominous magenta. Far in the distance, streaming into the Dueling Peaks was a river of flowing pink light: an army of guardians.

The prince fell to his knees.

"We lost."

She slipped down beside him, a hand over her mouth, her sword still in hand. It still glowed—a beacon in the night. Tears slipped down her face.

"They're all—they're all dead. The power...didn't awaken in me. I wasted so much time. I should have—"

"No."

His head snapped around to her at the strength of her denial. She couldn't drag her eyes away from the horror before her.

"There was nothing you could have done. There was nothing any of us could have done."

She turned to meet his gaze, and the open pain in her eyes must have told him she lacked the strength to be anything but honest.

He swallowed hard. Nodded. Dropped his face into his hands.

Zelda breathes in the sweet smell of her son, and drags her fingertips over his soft head.

“I have a memory,” she whispers, trying to replace the burning glow of malice in the dark with the warm colors of a swaddled baby in a fresh Sheikah blanket. “I remembered it at the Sacred Grounds right in the middle of Hyrule Field. I was kneeling there, and the prince lifted a hand towards me in blessing.” He was wearing ceremonial garb—dark blue and white and gold, a half cape draped over his shoulders. He had a crown of gold leaves like spikes and a sapphire slightly darker than his eyes in the center. His voice was strong and joyous, as if we had a whole crowd of observers instead of an audience of four.

She tries to remember the exact wording, practicing to drill it into her memory. “’Hero of Hyrule, chosen by the sword that seals the darkness, you have shown unflinching bravery and skill in the face of darkness and adversity. And have proven yourself worthy of the blessings of the Goddess Hylia.’

“He was so happy. So optimistic. I could almost believe we would be victorious. I could almost let myself get pulled along with him.” She’s not positive, but she suspects that happened quite a bit.

“From behind me, I could hear muttering as the Champions spoke to each other.”

_Revali said, “I thought you told him to tone it down.”_

_“I did,” Daruk said. He rubbed the back of his head. “I thought...this would get it out of his system, ya know?”_

_Revali huffed. “At least you talked him into a private ceremony. I’d hate to be involved with him making a fool of himself in front of the whole population of Castle Town.”_

_Urbosa had had enough. “Give him a break. That girl gives him hope.”_

She blinks, drawn back to the present where she’s speaking to the baby. Speaking to herself. Speaking to the prince far off in the castle, who may or may not be watching. “The hand in front of my face loosened, the fingers curling towards a fist, drawing my attention back to the words of the ritual. Perhaps he had heard the Champions talking, but I looked up to see his smile unwavering, his blue eyes still bright. 

“I couldn't look away, and he opened his hand once more.

“‘We pray, that the two of you will be stronger together as one.’

“And then he leaned down to share a secret with me, and the other Champions shifted to try to hear. His voice was quieter than theirs had been.

“‘Your presence here is a sign that the Goddess has blessed us. You are Hylia's light. The future is bright.’”

She presses a kiss to her sleeping son’s head. 

“And he was right, starshine. He was right.”


	3. Chapter 3

Here is what happened ten thousand years ago as Impa explained it:

  1. When it became clear that the Calamity would rise, Hyrule banded together, creating an army of guardians—autonomous war machines—along with four Divine Beasts. Each beast had a Champion as a pilot, one from each race across Hyrule. The machines fired on the Calamity, weakening it.
  2. A hero, carrying the Sword that Seals the Darkness, battled with the Calamity, bringing it to its knees.
  3. A princess with the blood of the Goddess used her divine powers to seal the Calamity away.



Here is what happened one hundred years ago as Zelda has pieced it together:

  1. When it became clear that the Calamity would rise again, Hyrule banded together to recreate the success they had before, excavating an army of guardians along with the four Divine Beasts. Each beast had a Champion as a pilot, one from each race across Hyrule, each prepared to fire on the Calamity and weaken it. Instead, Calamity Ganon, who spent his 10,000 years of captivity learning from his mistakes, took control of the guardians and the Divine Beasts, turning them to his side.
  2. A hero, carrying the Sword that Seals the Darkness, was prepared to battle with the Calamity and bring it to its knees. Instead, she was injured so badly that she had to be hidden away in the Shrine of Resurrection.
  3. A princess with the blood of the Goddess…was instead born a prince, who could not wield the divine power gifted only to royal daughters. They had no one to seal the Calamity. Many thought Hyrule was doomed even before their first two defenses failed.



#

Most of the Rito have never seen a Sheikah before, and Zelda assumes that the ones who don't comment on it simply assume they are oddly dressed Hylians.

Just as she does in every town, she chats with everyone she meets, just to get the lay of the land. The problem is that now, instead of telling her about problems she can fix or about nearby shrines she can cleanse or—most importantly—about Vah Medoh, everyone in town wants to talk about the baby. This is fine, as he is by far her favorite topic of discussion, but she realizes that it might be doing her mission a disservice.

One circle around the spire, and the conversation turns to how dangerous it is to raise a family in Rito Village, and Zelda latches onto the thread and doesn't let go. Apparently, every so often Vah Medoh simply shoots at the Rito flying below. After the most recent incident, a pair of Rito warriors made a run on the Divine Beast, attempting to take vengeance and protect their people. One of them was badly hurt. The other has vanished, most likely, everyone fears, to try again. This time alone.

This type of information Zelda can work with.

She meets the Rito who was injured. He's sitting on the floor with a burn across his chest, and Claree gives Zelda a worried look as he describes Vah Medoh’s cannons and force field.

Half way up the spire, they find the town's shrine, its pink light illuminating the whole area around it. The grass surrounding the shrine is yellow and crunching. She heads straight for it, and activates the pedestal to turn half the shrine's lights blue. They've found from their brief travels together that if the Sheikah want to enter the shrine with her, they need to step onto the elevator first. They all crowd onto the small circle, and lower into the shrine together.

Thankfully, this shrine does not seem too dangerous. It looks like all one room, which she can see all at once, and aside from the pools of malice and a puzzle, that seems to be it. She takes out a couple of monstrous eyeballs on the walls. It takes a moment for her to find the last eye, hidden behind one of the massive fans in the room, and in that time, it manages to release a single, floating skull, which she takes down with two quick slashes of her glowing sword. The baby is very interested in the sword's glow. He follows its movement with his eyes. It’s good practice for him, as Impa said he needed to practice his eye tracking. The malice shrivels up enough for her to navigate the puzzle, and from there, it's a simple matter of turning the fans until each windmill is spinning.

Zelda loves this kind of shrine.

When they have all the windmills spinning, a door opens, revealing the monk on his glowing pink dais. Zelda rolls her neck as she unstraps the front pack, handing the baby over to Claree. She doesn't want a monk anywhere near her son.

"D-do you want me to stay?" Paya asks. Her eyes dart to Zelda's abdomen, where she's still sore.

"No, I'm fine. I think I have to do this alone, anyway."

"You can wait," Paya offers, but she knows that won't happen.

Zelda kisses her baby, and waves them off, watching them rise back up the elevator before she turns to the monk at the end of the shrine. She rolls her shoulders and marches forward, the air fizzling more and more strongly with static and the smell of burning fields. As she walks through the door into the monk's domain, the room grows darker, everything thrown into a pink hue.

This monk has his palms pressed together in a mockery of prayer, and she takes a moment to guess what kind of ancient weapon he'll have. She takes a moment to guess what he'll have in store for her. Then she takes a deep breath and walks up the two steps. She stabs her sword into the glowing barrier. As it shatters, she shifts into a defensive stance.

It would make sense that the lighting would change without the magenta glow of the barrier, but it doesn't. The light comes from the monk himself. Swaths of malice have eaten across areas of gray flesh. His face is sunken, his eyes closed. His hair is bright red, like the blights that plague the Divine Beasts, but she can see the traces of the Sheikah he once was: his wide brimmed hat, half of a Sheikah eye drawn on his forehead under an assault of malice, golden bangles held suspended until they fall at his muscles' first twitch.

He rises, a dusting of ash falling from his stiff muscles as he grows limber. He's painfully thin.

Then painfully fast, zipping forward with an ancient short sword aimed to slice her open. Zelda's ready. She parries and spins out of the way, leaping back from his next assault. She's slow. She feels it. Not slow enough for this to be too much of a challenge, but it doesn't bode well for later. She's not sure she could do a back flip right now.

She needs to end this fast, and needs to keep him in this room. He zips forward again, and she dodges in time to spin around and slash at him, over and over in a flurry, every hit a burst of light from her sword. He falls back, and she readies for his next rush, but instead he rises into the air and vanishes.

She jumps to the side and twists, hoping he'll appear right above her, stab his sword into the floor, and be stuck there for her to finish him. But he does not reappear at all.

She shifts her stance, her eyes darting around. Then she hears it: a low laugh. From the other room.

Damn it.

She's cautious as she steps out. The fans are loud and whirring. She suspects him to be hiding behind the pillars on which the fans sit, but instead he's floating in the air. He raises a hand, and the pillars lower into the ground until the fans are at ground level. She pulls out her bow, fires off an arrow, then draws her sword again as he vanishes before the arrow reaches him. He reappears before her, and he zips forward again, but instead of aiming at her, he aims at the fan, slashing it once so it turns on her. The air hits her like a blow, throwing her back and into a wall, and then he shoots a laser at her. She ducks, rolling out of the wind and onto her feet.

As the wall behind her explodes, she reassesses how to fight him.

She runs, slashing at one of the fans to turn it, and throwing herself into the maze made of walls of wind. Right, left. She slashes another fan so she can get past and charges headlong into the monk. She's relentless, hacking against him even as he parries, not waiting for him to give her an opening. She beats him back and back and back.

And then the wind takes him. He steps back into the pillar of air, and it throws him out of the maze and into a wall. She can't reach him.

Not with her sword anyway.

She lets loose a single ancient arrow, and he bursts in a ball of light. When it fades, the fans have stopped and the malice remaining on the floor is gone. The shrine glows with white light, and the monk on the ground is grey and still. She sheathes her sword and walks to him, dropping to one knee at his side. There's something peaceful in the way he's fallen, almost as if he chose to lie down. His voice is so different from the laugh she heard earlier. It's ancient and sharp and resonates in her mind.

_You have cleansed me, and my spirit is free. In the name of the Goddess Hylia, I bestow this gift upon you._

The spirit orb forms before his emancipated chest, building into a solid, purple sphere, then flying at her, washing over her from the heart out. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

_May the goddess forever smile upon you._

He fizzles away into dust.

#

The village elder, Kaneli, is at the top of the village. Zelda and the Sheikah kneel as he serves them tea, and she takes the baby out of the front pack so he can stretch out and do some wiggling. He likes to kick his feet, but is not too interested in uncurling yet. She sets him in her lap so he's facing out, and props his head against her stomach so he can sit up a bit.

"You are Sheikah," Kaneli says. "The builders of the Divine Beasts."

"We didn't think anyone knew who we were," Claree says.

"We’ve been praying for someone to tame the Divine Beast, someone to stop its reign of terror. But only a Champion or a descendant of a Champion can control it." He then turns to Zelda, and she flushes with dread that this Rito is old enough to recognize her. "I've heard stories of that device on your hip. Are you, by chance, a descendant of the Champions?"

Oh, okay. She can work with that.

She takes the baby's wrist and has him wave his arm.

He startles. "The child?"

"Well, yes," Zelda says. "But I'm sure I'll do in a pinch."

The elder agrees that she will.

They don't get very far back down the spire before a Rito sticks her head out of her home and says, "Excuse me? I heard you speaking with the elder." Her eyes fall on the baby, then bounce back up to Zelda's face. "It's my husband, Teba, who's gone off to fight the Divine Beast. If I tell you where he's gone, could you bring him back safe? I—I have a son too."

Zelda nods. "I'll bring him home."

"He's headed to a place called the Flight Range. It's in Dronoc's Pass at the base of the Hebra Mountains. It's a place where Rito warriors prepare for aerial combat." She turns and gestures down to a lower level of the spire. "If you take off from Revali's Landing, it's a straight shot down to the Flight Range."

Something prickles at the back of Zelda's mind. It grates like sandpaper as it tries to break its way into her memory. She takes a step closer to look down at the landing, at the winged symbol drawn across it in bright white paint, and the rich grain of the wood, at the railing she used to lean against—

Her eyes widen as she’s sucked into the past.

Revali walked back and forth in front of her as he talked, his wings sweeping out dramatic gestures to express his confidence. "I hardly think the blood of the Goddess is necessary, honestly. When Ganon arrives, we'll simply defeat him. Sealing him away so we can put him off for another ten-thousand years? It sounds as if we're not planning to finish the job. No. With my prowess and Vah Medoh's ferocious power, with your magical sword, and Urbosa at our backs, we'll surely defeat the Calamity handily."

She leaned back against the landing's railing, soaking up the sun despite the cold. She could see her breath curling before her face. "Mipha's an exceptional pilot."

"Oh yes, defend your childhood friend, because she's _cute_ and _sweet_ and _kind_. A fine set of attributes when facing an evil beyond comprehension."

"Say that to her face, and you'll learn what it's like to be on her bad side. Mipha's practical. She knows how to hit where it hurts."

"Humpf."

"And Daruk is getting there. He can fire the laser, and that's the most important part."

"Fine, fine. I certainly won't turn down emergency back up."

She laughed to herself, shaking her head. 

Suddenly Revali was at her side, leaning into her space and piercing her with a look. "I _notice_...you didn't mention our _fearless leader_. Tell me. How fares his noble quest to fuck his way across Hyrule?"

She averted her eyes and frowned. "That's...crude."

"But accurate." Revali's eyes danced in delight.

"This promotion is good for my career, and I'm not going to ruin it by complaining.”

“Complaining about what?”

“Nothing. I’m not complaining.”

Revali scoffed in disgust. “Don't worry. I will complain for you."

"You're a true friend."

"Indeed. You're quite lucky. In this one respect at least."

She turned her face back to the sun and closed her eyes.

He was quiet for only a moment, before his patience wore out. "So nothing? Out of all the flushed, fine noble ladies and the milk maids and bar wenches, still no pitter patter of tiny princess feet?"

"You said we didn't need a princess to be successful."

"We don't," he assured her. "I'm just... _concerned_ that he'll get the pox, and—" He sniffed, placing a hand over his heart. "—Sadly—I will have to take over as leader."

She barely held back a laugh. "I'll let him know of your concerns."

He gave her an indignant snort.

And, as happens so often recently, that memory rolls into another, a door opening so memories can tumble out. She was aiming an arrow at the sun, her bow drawn, her eyes squinted against the glare. She let the arrow fly, and a moment later, a great, blue streak landed in front of her with a gust of wind that blew back her braid. Revali fumed as he plucked her arrow from the loose end of his scarf. He threw the arrow at her feet, and hissed, "You missed." And then Revali sat at a grand banquet table, his elbow propped on the table, his head in his hand, the feathers of his other wing drumming against the table in boredom. "As if we don't have anything better to do with our time," he muttered to her as the king droned on from the other side of the dining room. Then they were in the field, shooting at bottles they'd set on a tree stump. He huffed in aggravation and swatted at her elbow until she straightened her form. Then he was scoffing at her, "There are all sorts of omens of inevitable doom. You and your sword are hardly special." Then she was braiding back his feathers to keep then out of his way, and yet she knew—she knows!—that he just wanted to have braids like her. Then they were back to back in battle, surrounded by a horde of moblins. He burst into the air, grabbed the back of her chest plate in a claw and tossed her into the air, where she shot off a half dozen bomb arrows while he did the same over her shoulder. He grabbed her again as she fell, and dove into a spin, depositing her on top of a hinox so she could stab it in the eye.

She stumbles, catching herself against the railing as the memories crash over her. Paya and Claree grab at her elbows, and she blinks rapidly, dragging herself back into the present where the Rito woman is looking at her as if she no longer trusts Zelda to save her husband.

She needs to keep it together.

Paya reaches up to brush her cheek, and only then does she realize that she's crying.

"Zelda?" Claree asks.

Zelda straightens her shoulders and takes a shaky breath. "My best friend is dead."

#

The baby needs a diaper change, and he'll need to eat again soon, and Paya is strongly hinting that Zelda should drink a big glass of juice and take a nap. Instead of a nap, they head down to the clothing store and purchase warmer clothes. She even gets a warmer outfit for the baby, complete with a new hat with a pompom on top and little deer prancing around the edge. She finds matching booties and mittens in addition to the sack-like onesie Rito hatchlings wear. And then they're ready to head to the Flight Range.

Or at least they would be, except the baby decides that it’s time for him to cry, and Zelda spends two hours pacing with him crying into her shoulder. She heads down to one of the little islands on the way into town so they hopefully don't disturb anyone, and she pats his back and sings and bounces, and he is inconsolable. She offers to feed him again, which he doesn't want, and she checks his diaper again, which is fine. He just wants to cry.

"I know, starshine," she says, her voice exhausted. "I know how that feels."

Finally, he falls asleep, and Zelda hands him off to Paya and takes her advice about lying down for a nap. An hour later he's awake again and wants to eat.

She has a moment of panic that they're never going to make it to the Flight Range. The Rito they're supposed to assist will leave before she gets there, and he'll be shot out of the sky, and Zelda will have to go back to Kakariko until the baby grows a fair bit and the last two Divine Beasts will have to wait.

Claree squeezes her knee, which she realizes was bouncing. "It's okay," she says. "We've got loads of time."

There's no way Claree can be certain of that.

But she’s right. When the baby finishes eating, he's chipper and curious, and Zelda's able to put him in the front pack and set off on the next leg of their trip.

They reach the Flight Range, and the wind bites at her cheeks, but otherwise, she's toasty. The baby is looking around, his lower lip sucked so far into his mouth that he looks like a lizard in a cozy hat. He flaps his arms and kicks his legs as much as he can, which isn't much while he's in the front pack.

"Oh, you like the cold, don'tchya?"

His answer is to drool a fair bit and then rub it on the squishy part of the front pack in front of his face.

The flight range is a rush of wind, rising straight up from a hole in the ground, and the prickling sensation teases at the back of her neck the way it does when she knows she's been somewhere before, knows she's done something before. 

They ignore the blighted shrine for now and follow the path around to a house set on a perch above the range. A Rito sits inside, stringing a bow, and he gives them a confused frown once they climb the ladder.

"Who are you?" His voice is deep and annoyed, and the annoyance rings a bell, but the tone, the cadence is wrong.

"Elder Kaneli sent me to help you with your next attack on Vah Medoh. I'm a descendant of the Champions."

He gives her a skeptical look, his eyes dropping to the baby, then narrowing as they return to her face. He shakes his head and turns back to his bow. "The Divine Beast is no place for a baby."

"He's detachable."

He snorts. "Not often you see a mother so willing to orphan her child."

Claree sneers, and a shiruken snaps silently into Paya's hand.

Zelda's fury is more cutting. "Not often you see a father abandon his wife and son for petty revenge, but here we are."

His head snaps up. "It's not _petty revenge_. I'm doing this for the good of my people. So my son can have a better future. Personal sacrifices are inconsequential."

She gives him a long, blank look, until his eyes narrow in frustration. "Fine. Prove it then. If you can shoot ten targets in three minutes, I'll consider taking you with m—"

She runs two steps and launches herself into the air. The baby meeps as her paraglider pops open, but he blinks up at her once, then snuggles his face back into her chest. Ten targets in three minutes is a bit offensive. In one maneuver, she tucks away the paraglider and pulls out her bow, snapping off three shots as she falls, and then swapping out for the paraglider again, and rising back up. The baby's not sure he liked that, but he's still too confused to be upset. She sings a little song to distract him as she turns and hits four targets on the next drop. She makes a wide circle to get the wind in her hair and giggles down at the baby to show him that this is fun, before she drops again, hits the last three targets, and lands five seconds later back on the decking.

Teba's on his feet, looking at her in horror. She ignores him, checking the baby's cheeks, which aren't red and aren’t too cold to the touch. He's not actively upset, but he has a furrow between his eyes as if he thinks maybe he ought to be and isn't sure. 

"Good job, brave boy!"

He kicks his feet. She ignores the tremble in her arm muscles and the burn in her abs.

"You said he was detachable!" Teba shouts.

She gives him another blank look, then unbuckles the front pack. They spend a moment getting the pack readjusted for Claree, and then Zelda bends down to the baby's eye level and smiles at him. "Mama will be back for you soon. In the meantime, you be good for Auntie Claree and Auntie Paya." She strokes the back of her fingers over his cheek and presses a kiss to his hat. She inhales the smell of him: wind and sweet milk, and suddenly, it's much harder to pull herself away than she thought it would be.

Maybe she should take him with her.

No! Of course not!

"A few hours," she tells Claree, serious and anxious and her hand not leaving his back. "I'll activate the warp point and meet you back at the village."

"Don't worry. We've got him." Claree looks down at him and bounces, but she doesn't do it the way Zelda does. Zelda wants to correct her. Her fingers itch to take the baby back. 

Her hands linger on his back, and he blinks at her with big eyes before Claree turns and he can no longer see her face. “Go,” she says.

Zelda bites her lip and nods.

“Let’s go,” she says.

Teba frowns at her, then rolls his eyes and gestures at a chest full of bomb arrows. He lowers to let her climb on his back. 

She does so easily. It’s startlingly familiar.


	4. Chapter 4

Before the Calamity, everyone thought there was no way the prince could receive the Goddess’ sealing powers.

Now, he clearly has them, and has been using them for a hundred years.

Zelda has no idea how this came to pass.

#

As soon as they reach Vah Medoh's altitude, Zelda can't feel her face. The wind has teeth. Every place where her snowquill outfit doesn't have two layers of down stands out in sharp relief against her skin.

They close on Vah Medoh, looming ever closer and ever larger, the sound of its engines blurring with the wind.

"Okay," Teba shouts. "If we take out the cannons, the force field will fall. I'll distract it while you shoot the cannons with bomb arrows."

"Got it," she shouts.

"Be careful."

"You too." And then she ducks off Teba's side, pulling open her paraglider for the final approach. 

It's fairly easy. When a canon shoots at her, she simply folds her paraglider and drops ten feet and the blast sails over her head. Each cannon takes two shots to disable, and she disables the whole force field with eight shots, meaning she has leftover bomb arrows to take with her. The problem is that it takes a while to circle the Divine Beast and approach each of the four corners, and by the time she's done, her fingers are pale and cramped and the tips of her ears are painful to the touch. 

The forcefield flickers, then dies, and Zelda swoops down onto the great bird's tail, where green moss creeps its way across the ground. She can't recall the layout of the Divine Beast, but she can see the smattering of ruins along Medoh's back, and she recalls ducking behind the pillars in something between hide-and-seek and trying to maim each other.

Revali’s voice echoes in her mind when she activates the warp point. "Well. Well. Well."

She laughs, but it comes out as a bone deep shiver. 

"Took you long enough. I suppose you think you had _more important_ things to do. And it looks like you've forgotten your way around. I suppose that means you'll need a map."

She smiles, and says, "Sorry. Like you said, I have more important things." Then she warps back to Rito Village, where the sudden temperature change makes her sick to her stomach.

#

The baby is beyond hungry. He's mad, and wants everyone to know it. When he spots Zelda, his cry stutters for a split second, then doubles in volume until she sweeps him out of Paya's arms and gets her shirt open. Rito clasps are finicky, and the baby is furious about that too. Then he's mad that her body is so cold.

He's just mad at everything. His eating is noisy and violent, and he glares up at her the whole time.

Her hands are painful as feeling comes back into them. Claree wraps her and the baby in a blanket and complains about the design of Zelda's tunic while Paya gets her some tea that's too hot to drink and fusses over her, asking after any injuries. She's completely unharmed, but her arms and shoulders and sides are sore. She knows better than to say anything about that. Paya will try to give her a massage.

When the baby's fallen asleep, Zelda hands him over to Paya, huffs out a deep breath, and warps back to the Divine Beast. 

Zelda appreciates how many puzzles there are in the Divine Beasts. She appreciates that there aren't hordes of monsters surrounding her and screeching at her the way there are at the outposts dotted across the country and around the base of most of the towers. She moves metal blocks with magnesis and shifts Vah Medoh left and right to change the pitch of the floor. Revali snarks at her, and she snipes back at the air. And then she has a map and three terminals and it's time to head back to her son.

He's not as mad at her this time, but he does fuss, unhappy that she's abandoned him for so long. 

"As soon as he woke up, he cried for you, and he hasn't stopped since," Claree says, nudging her into a chair at the inn. She reaches into Zelda's space without asking and detaches Zelda's belt, which is magically enhanced by the koroks. 

"Don't t-tell her that!" Paya says. She has a tray in her hands on which sits a meal large enough to feed two people. Zelda's stomach growls at the smell of salt and fat. She needs to get started if she's going to eat all of it, but it's hard to eat and nurse a baby. She scoops up a forkful of fish and tries not to spill any on her son. Her hands are so cold that it's hard to hold the fork.

"Aha!" Claree pulls the undershirt that Zelda slept in last night out of one of Zelda's pouches, and then folds it up so it's a thin rectangle and tucks it into the padding on the front pack. It'll be right in front of the baby's face. "Ta dah! Wear another one when you leave, we'll swap next time you come back."

"I reek," Zelda says.

"That's the point."

A residual shiver rolls from the base of her neck to her lungs. The baby strokes at her chest with a fist and mumbles grumpily. He has a little furrow between his eyebrows. He looks so much like her that she sees her own face the last time she glared at someone who was half frozen. She laughs. "Do you want to hear a story about Prince Link?"

Paya and Claree's movements slow, clearly listening but pretending they're not. Zelda focuses on the baby and settles into her chair.

  
"I had a memory, right in front of the Goddess statue in Lurelin. That's a village by the sea, far away from here, where it's warm and toasty during the day, and at night the stars come out. The air smells salty, and the waves slap against your ankles while your feet sink into the sand.

"I remember chasing after the prince when he gave me the slip. I charged into Lurelin on a horse and slid off its back before it even slowed, because I'd spotted him kneeling in the ocean in front of the Goddess statue. His head was bowed in prayer, his hands clasped before his chest. It was late at night, but he stood out in the white tunic he wore when he prayed.” His prayer outfit was simple. No ornamentation except a cloth belt that he tied on the side. One end floated in the waves.

"This was one of the first memories I got back. It was before I started feeling the emotions I had along with the memories. Before the memories started triggering others. So it was as if I was watching someone else—someone who just happened to look like me. I'd watch, and I'd have to guess at how it fit into my life. I'd have to convince myself that it was me. That I was there. But this was the first time I experienced a memory with other senses besides sight and sound. I remember how cold the water was..."

She stares down at the baby without really seeing him. She remembers the taste of the ocean spray. She remembers the way the waves beat against her legs.

She shakes herself and keeps talking, talking through the memory, drilling it into her brain, fitting it in with everything else she's learned. "The water was turning icy and the tide was coming in. It was up to his chest, as high as the Goddess' feet.” _He’d clenched his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering, squeezed his hands tighter in front of him to try to stop his hands from shaking._

“I said, ‘Your Highness, it’s time to get out of the water.’ Very civil. But now I can tell, from the tone of my voice, that I was barely holding in my rage. He blinked at me as if he didn’t understand who I was. His lips had turned purple. So I splashed into the water and hoisted him to his feet.” _His skin was so cold. Water poured from his thin clothes. He swayed, and she wedged her shoulder under his armpit and threw his arm over her shoulder. The bare skin of his wrist was frosty in her hand. The water from his shirt worked its way through her armor, chilling all the way down her side._

“And I started ranting at him. ‘You cannot sneak off like this! What if you’d been murdered by monsters? What if you’d frozen to death or drowned in the ocean? Think of what would happen to Hyrule without you. Think of what would happen to me if you were hurt. Think of someone beside yourself for once.’"

Paya gasps, but tries to stifle it.

 _He shuddered, and she braced him with a hand flat against his chest. He was shivering, not speaking even to defend himself or tell her she was out of line speaking to him like that. She checked his temperature in his forehead and his cheek._ She can tell now how scared she must have been.

“His eyes drifted back to the Goddess, and he whispered, ‘I need to pray harder.’

“That made me truly angry. So I told him that killing himself would not impress her.

“He turned to look down at me, and said nothing more, and that was irritating too.

“‘Get out of the water,' I said. 'Come back tomorrow when the sun is up and I can guard you.'

“And he just…stared down at me. And then he covered my hand on his cheek with his own and kissed my knuckles.

“And that was so exceptionally irritating that he didn't recognize me and he wasn't listening to me that I snatched back my hand, ducked out from under his arm, and let him splash into the water. That was enough of a shock to get him onto the beach.”

She looks down at the baby. His eyes are getting heavy, and he’s warm in her arms.

There's something she's missing in this memory. She tugs on it, trying to find the places it's attached to the rest of what she knows.

The prince kissed her knuckles—and she knows it was the first of many times he did that. Does she remember that or has she pieced it together? Is she sure it was the first time? Does she _know_?

He kissed her knuckles—

He kissed her knuckles, because the the back of her hand was covered in plate mail. She jerked her hand away and ducked out from under his arm, so he crashed into the freezing water.

He kissed her knuckles—a different time. The lighting was different. There was a smile on his lips—and she mashed her hand against his face and shoved him away. When he looked back on her, it was with a wolfish grin.

He kissed her knuckles—fear and a dare and a want in his eyes. She slipped her hand to the back of his neck and drew him down into a kiss.

He kissed her knuckles—he was on his knees, his eyes desperate and frantic until he growled and twisted to glare over his shoulder, because—because—no, it's too fuzzy.

He kissed her knuckles, stroking his thumb over the bare back of her hand. His eyes determination and dread. "Go!" "I won't leave you." "You have to. You have to protect us." His eyes squeezed closed in pain. "I'll see you soon," he swore. "Both of us," she promised.

"Zelda?"

She blinks. Paya is crouching in front of her.

"He's asleep and you're dozing off." Paya holds out her hands for the baby, and Zelda shakes herself and passes him over. She pushes hair back from her eyes and straightens her shirt. 

"Okay. I can finish the last few terminals, and I'll check in before I fight the blight."

"N-no," Paya says, as definitive as she can be. "L-lie down. Sleep."

"I—"

Paya gives her a sharp look that kills all her protests. She nods slightly and lets Paya help her up from her chair and guide her to a bed where she passes out for a few hours.

#

After a sleep and more time with the baby, she's back on Vah Medoh to get the last two terminals. They're both a matter of turning the Divine Beast and gliding. She finishes in a half hour and considers her options. She said she would head back to Rito Village before facing the blight, but it'll be a few hours before the baby is hungry again. She'll basically be taking a long break until his next nap, and that seems like a waste of time. She's well rested (or as well rested as she's going to be), and she hasn't fought a monster in hours. She's in full health and has all the supplies she needs.

Revali would appreciate her finishing this now.

It shouldn't take too terribly long.

As she heads up top to the main control unit, she has a snack of salted pumpkin chunks to boost her defense (and also because she's ravenous). She steps out on the flat area above the divine bird's wings, where the early afternoon sun is far too cheerful. It reminds her of a park, but then again, if she looks at it like a future battlefield, her eyes are drawn from the moss and the architecture to the great turbines that produce an updraft. While she levels the bird out, she sucks the salt off her fingers and wipes her hand on her pants. She pauses in front of the main control unit to change bows and adjust how her arrows are situated in her quiver. She stretches out her hamstrings and rolls her shoulders.

She touches the Sheikah slate to the control unit, and ducks back as malice predictably blooms under her hand, surging toward her face. Malice swirls up from the base of the control unit. Glowing blue strands flow from every direction, coalescing above the control unit in a building ball of blue, combining with the malice until a form takes shape: red hair and an exoskeleton of ancient armor over flesh of flowing malice. She marks its arm like a canon and notes the eye in the center of its face—probably a weak-point. She notes the wind that whips up around it.

He's going to fly.

So that's how it's going to be.

"Good luck!" Ravali's voice says, "This is one of Ganon's own. But I suppose if anyone can do it, it’s you: avenge me!"

She dashes to the nearest turbine and lifts into the air to get on his level. He aims his canon arm, and she pulls her bow, shooting him four times in the eye before pulling out of her fall. He rears back, abandoning his shot and moves away, putting distance between them. She follows, but she's too slow in the air. He throws a tornado at her, and she rolls out of the way as a pillar crumbles behind her. She reaches the next turbine as he aims his canon again, this time getting off two shots that blast beneath her as she rockets into the air. She only manages two shots to his eye before he's off again, this time staying low. She stumbles as she hits the ground but keeps her feet and runs—runs straight up to him, ducking under his cannon and wailing on him with her sword until he falls to the ground and she can really go at him.

The blight winces away and then condenses into a ball of blue light, reforming over the top of the main control unit, where he rethinks. And changes strategy.

He releases a half dozen flying turrets, which fan out around him, then all fire at once to announce themselves.

She ducks behind a pillar, which explodes over her, but then she's running to the nearest turbine. Take out the turrets. Hope they don't regenerate. She launches into the air and shoots at two of them. An explosion lights below her. As soon as the flames are whipped away with the wind, the updraft is gone, and she glances down to see a burnt crater where the turbine once was.

Windblight Ganon aims his canon at her, and her stomach drops a split second before she does, avoiding the blast, but slamming into the ground just in time for the turrets to send down a rain of fire over her. She rolls, and rolls, and suddenly rolling is easier. Because the ground is tilting. Another turbine explodes, and she's skidding, headed towards the wingtip and the open sky beyond.

She grabs a column as she skids by, pulling herself on top of it. The turrets are on her as she pulls out the Sheikah slate and rolls the Divine Beast back the other direction. Maybe that will even it out, but there's no time to be certain. She drops off her pillar and skids down the sloped wing as the turrets fire again. As she slides, she rolls onto her back and aims above her, firing off another arrow so another turret explodes. She changes her skid and lands on another pillar, whips around to shoot another turret, then leaps to another pillar as the one she's on explodes. The ground is evening out, but slowly. She can feel the strain of the engines as the beast tries to right itself. 

As she lands on the next pillar, one of the turrets miscalculates the tilt of the ground and swings too close to her. She leaps for it, grabs it in her arms, and they both swing wildly before spiraling down. It beeps frantically and fires off a series of wild shots. She holds on, holds on, watching the edge of the wing come closer and closer. She lets go as the last turret fires on the both of them. She shoots a bomb arrow as the turret above her explodes.

She hits the ground hard just as it's flat enough to run on.

Windblight Ganon looms over her, and the building whine of a guardian laser cuts through the air. She swings her bow around, shoots him in the eye, and charges for him, stabbing and hacking through splattering malice. He roars and the ground rolls once more, so fast this time that for a moment she's lifted up with it. Vah Medoh swings into a barrel roll and Zelda grabs for the only thing nearby.

Windblight Ganon. 

She locks a leg around his neck and grabs hold of his headpiece as she stabs into his head again and again. They're airborne, and her hair is flying, and she can't find which way is down. It doesn't matter, because her whole being is focused on holding on and stabbing. He's losing stamina, she can feel it. She's close to defeating him. Malice burns against her skin, stings at her eyes, and she slashes at his hand as he tries to grab at her.

Vah Medoh evens out enough for her to see their flight path as they pick up speed, as they dive—dive for the spire of Rito Village. The blight would crash the Divine Beast to kill her. 

They're headed for her son.

A rage grips her the likes of which she's never known. She screams and stabs as the blight cries out. She grabs his headpiece and tears, grabs his head and twists. Something gives in the creature's neck, and malice splatters everywhere, and the wind rips at them both as they fall, fall, fall, and with one last strike he shrieks, and explodes, and she crashes to the ground through a cloud of misted malice, still diving for the spire.

She grabs for the slate as a light appears before her. The light throws out its wings, and Vah Medoh surges, swings to the right, and soars.

Her hands are shaking. She's gasping and frantic even as the ground evens under her knees and the scream of the turbines calms. Her baby is safe. The village is safe. A pair of glowing feet step into her line of vision, and she looks up at Revali's spirit, his wings folded and one eyebrow lifted.

She drops the slate and collapses forward onto her hands.

She gulps down air before gasping, "Thanks."

“Hrumpf,” Revali says. "Look at you."

She chokes on a laugh and pushes to her feet, her heart aching at the sight of him. None of the memories prepared her for how viscerally she’d feel it, standing here with him. The proud tilt of his head, the warm glint of affection in his eyes. Her eyes prickle, and she rushes forward, enfolded into wings that draped over her like a cloud. There's a solidity to his spirit, but the texture is wrong. She sinks too far against him and his surface seems to hang over her like steam.

He tuts at her. "I always knew you were soft."

She sniffs. "Yeah, around the middle, especially."

He leans over her shoulder, inspecting her from the back, then shrugs. "It's below me to notice such minute details. Though I suppose it will make it more difficult for you to use my gift. The greatest of all the Champion's gifts, I assure you." He shakes his head. "This is a betrayal, I hope you know. Fornicating with that...idiot. Why would you do something so half-witted?“

“I don’t remember,” she says. 

He says nothing. There aren’t any condolences for this that can be put into words. He’s dead, and she’s lost her memories.

She decides not to try. “I remember it was good. Very good.”

"Gah!"

She laughs, and it's a bit like she's choking. "I miss you."

He shifts to hug her more fiercely and lowers his beak to her ear. "As if a measly thing like death could end our friendship."

He releases her suddenly, stepping back to throw out his wings. He drags his arms towards one another as if fighting against an invisible force. The power of his gift builds into an orb before him, then bursts towards her with a flick of his wing tips. It crashes against her chest, and wind whips over her, lifting her braid and the ends of her tabard. She closes her eyes and rises a few inches off the ground.

When she lands, she feels powerful.

Revali has turned away, but he peeks at her over his shoulder. "Name the baby after me."

She snorts. "You wish."

Her body starts to glow, to lift off the ground again. When she opens her eyes, she's standing on Revali's landing, and Vah Medoh soars overhead. She shades her eyes as the Divine Beast stalls out, then the ground shakes as it lands atop the spire.

Paya runs out with the baby in her arms, and Zelda takes him just as the laser erupts from Vah Medoh. Revali's sights set on the castle.


	5. Chapter 5

Here is a list of reasons that Zelda didn’t realize she was pregnant until she was about six or seven months along.

  * She had amnesia.
  * She gained weight, yes, but that was to be expected as she got stronger. She woke up in the Shrine of Resurrection thin and atrophied, but now she had muscle. Her appetite was natural after not eating for a century, natural for her absurd metabolism and how many scrapes she had to heal.
  * She had amnesia.
  * They had no idea the full effects of the resurrection technology. When she stepped out of the Shrine of Resurrection, she was weak. She was nauseous all the time. She tired easily. But Impa assured her that this was probably normal. A bit of fatigue and daily retching was a small price to pay for being alive. Her body was a confused mess, and that explained everything. Zelda agreed and threw herself into getting stronger. She found a tea that helped settle her stomach.
  * She has amnesia.



#

The malice has left Zelda with some fairly bad burns, which Paya fusses over with pastes and fairy tonic. The Rito are so happy that she's tamed the Divine Beast that they offer a celebratory meal in her honor. "As much food as you can eat!" By the time she goes for third helpings, they start to regret offering that.

Kaneli presents her with Revali's bow, and she takes it reverently. She taps the blue bandana knotted around the top, and says to Paya, "I put that there."

They spend some time cleansing a few shrines in the area, enough for her to present the Goddess with another set of spirit orbs. Enough so that when she and the baby lay on a blanket on Revali's Landing, she thinks the prince might be able to hear her. The baby lies on his back and watches as she shakes a rattle above his face. He's mesmerized, kicking his feet which she takes to mean that he likes it. From a distance, her quiet speaking looks as if she's talking to the baby, but in actuality, she's checking in with the prince. Maybe he can hear her, and maybe he can't. She's been a bit negligent in speaking to him lately. She hasn't heard his voice since the baby was born. That makes her nervous.

"I have a memory where we were walking through the Breach of Demise, side by side, heading back from the Royal Tech Lab. Or so I assume. And you spun on me with a gleam in your eyes and said, 'Okay. What did you get?'

"I remember that I felt mischievous. I smiled back and checked over my shoulder before opening my hand to show three ancient gears with broken cogs and a screw so stripped that it looked like a nail.

"You bent in to poke at them in my hand, and I remember it tickled. You shook your head. I think in admiration, but I might be wrong. 'I don't know how you manage to steal things right out from under the Sheikah's noses.'

"I was a bit embarrassed and shifted the pieces myself. 'They were going to throw them away. They're broken.'

"You told me it was still impressive.

"I was embarrassed and admitted, 'I think they know.' I don't remember why I thought that, or why I said it, or even why I was taking the parts. It's not that surprising though, because I take them now too. I have a collection. Sometimes they come in handy.

"You said, 'That means they like you. It's hard to earn the Sheikah's trust.'

"It sounded very self-deprecating when I said, 'And yet I won them over by pick pocketing and arguing with them.' I don't remember that either, but it does sound like me. The arguing part at least."

She changes the rhythm of the baby's rattle.

"You tilted your head, and you smiled at me. 'That you did.' And...I don't know. It seems from that memory that we were friends. We got along. Am I reading too much into it? Maybe I'm wrong about everything."

She rubs her forehead with her free hand and sighs before looking back down at the baby. "He's so precious...I hope you can see how perfect he is."

Paya's feet pad onto the landing, and Zelda looks up and smils at her. "You ready to concede that we can leave tomorrow?"

Paya narrows her eyes. "Are you rested enough for the journey?"

"She's _fine_ ," Claree says, coming up behind her. She's been saying that for the past two days, for which Zelda is grateful.

"I'm-I'm here to tell you the lunch is ready," Paya says.

"Thank you." Zelda sits up and gathers up the baby and their belongings. “After lunch, we can pack. We can leave for the desert tomorrow morning."

She insists on stopping at the shrines that they skipped on their way to Rito Village as they work their way south out of Tabantha and across the Great Bridge. 

At the Great Bridge stable, one of the travelers pulls out a long board with an array of tines. He sits on the floor, sets one end in front of him, and begins to pluck the tines with his thumbs, producing a song not unlike a music box.

“Do you think he’ll sing?” Claree asks right before the bard breaks into a light sea shanty that feels out of place. He’s four songs in before he plays the one about the prince. The song sounds strange with the plinking underscore.

In this version, all the ladies are nobles. He swept a fancy lady off her feet at a ball, her skirts flaring as he spun her in a dance, and he spun her straight off the dance floor, and he spun into the garden and into the shadows. He seduced a countess at afternoon tea, so her lips still tasted like sweet cake and strawberries. He showed a fine lady how to use a bow, his arms around her, her back against his chest, and she was so flustered that she missed every shot.

Zelda shuffles her plates around, looking for anything she hasn't finished. 

"This version is too flowery for my tastes,” Claree says.

“The bawdy ones at least have courage,” Zelda says.

Paya mutters, "I like this one better than those.”

They spend a peaceful day and night on Satori Mountain, where they spread out a horse blanket and let the baby lie on his back. Zelda finds a bright green leaf and slowly moves it back and forth, allowing him to practice tracking it with his eyes. She flips him onto his belly and lies on her stomach facing him, encouraging him with excited words and gentle songs of her own invention to lift his head and look at her. He absolutely hates this training exercise and prefers to press his face into the blanket and sob until the blanket is covered in tears and snot and Zelda picks him up for a snuggle.

"That's alright, starshine. We'll try again this afternoon."

They try again in the afternoon. Just like every afternoon, he still hates it.

Zelda shows them the Lord of the Mountain, and sneaks close enough to a blupee for the baby to see it, grunt at it, and scare it into disappearing.

They slip quietly past the Colosseum, and then Zelda kills a hinox blocking their way across a bridge. It takes them a full week to finally reach the mouth of Gerudo Valley.

The baby has started cooing. Or more accurately, he's started to gurgle, and he practices loudly as they make their way into the valley. 

"Gluuurrrrrrrrgh!"

"Then what happened?"

"Blraaaaxoo!"

"That's right! You are very clever!"

"Krgluuuuuuub."

"Oh, I liked that one!"

They pull into the canyon and the Wasteland Tower rises above them, and Zelda misses responding to his next gurgle as she pulls her horse up short.

Paya turns. "W-what is it?"

"The tower!" Zelda points up at it, and then pulls the Sheikah slate from her hip, checking her map in confusion.

"What about it?" Claree asks.

"It's magenta."

Claree looks back and forth between Zelda and the tower. "...And?"

"And it was blue when I was here two months ago. I already cleansed it."

Both the Sheikah tighten in fear, but Zelda is absorbed in her slate. "See? I already have the map for the Gerudo region."

"Do...they only stay cleansed for a set period of time?" Claree asks.

"If that were the case, then the Great Plateau tower would be corrupted again, or Necluda or the Woodland tower. Those were fine as we passed them. And this one has been cleansed for less time than those. I did it just a few weeks before I went to Kakriko to give birth." Zelda shakes her head, then slips off her horse. The Sheikah follow her lead. "I'm going to warp up there and cleanse it again. I don't like it looming over us like that. It shouldn't take long. Can you take him?"

She unbuckles the front pack, and together they maneuver so Paya's holding the baby. Zelda brushes his hair and kisses his head, and he looks up at her with enormous, curious eyes.

"Don't let him see you warp," Claree says. "He hates that."

She takes a step to the side so she's behind the baby's back and out of sight and taps the icon for the tower.

Nothing happens.

She frowns and presses it again. Then harder. Then a double tap. She tries one of the nearby shrines up ahead with the same effect. "It doesn't work! I'm unable to warp anywhere in the area!"

Claree's leaning over her shoulder again. "Are we already in the Gerudo region?"

"Yes," Zelda says. "As soon as we crossed into the canyon."

"There's usually a little arrow to mark where you are."

Zelda blinks. She hadn't noticed that, but there is definitely no indication whatsoever of where they are. 

She lowers the slate and looks up at the tower. "I'm not going into the desert without a map."

"A-agreed," Paya says.

"But _why_ is it like that? What happened?! Can it happen again? Or to the Divine Beasts? This is very concerning."

"T-t-t-t-"

Zelda looks up at Paya, who squeezes her eyes closed to try to force out the words. When her stutter doesn't improve, she buries her face in her hands and gives a frustrated groan. Zelda reaches out and strokes her arm. It's not often that Paya has this much trouble speaking, and her anxiety over whatever it is that she has to say makes Zelda even more nervous.

"T-t-the n-n-night James was b-b-b-born..."

Zelda sucks in a sharp breath through her nose. Then lets it out slowly, which does nothing for the sudden tension in her arms. "Yes, that—that would do it, wouldn't it?" This is probably the farthest tower from Kakariko. She looks back up at the tower, then sighs and tucks away the slate. "Alright. Give him back. We'll go as a team."

Claree takes care of the horses as they get the baby settled back against Zelda's chest. They walk up the scaffolding on the canyon wall until they reach the first flat area. The first time she was here, she had to fight her way up the catwalks, dodging arrows and cutting down moblins at the bottle necks. Today the wooden planks are abandoned. Zelda hopes this is a sign that there won't be a horde waiting for them at the top. With the tower corrupted again, her hopes are not high.

The baby takes up his gurgling again, and to distract him she says, "The night you were born, Calamity Ganon roared so loudly that we could hear it in Kakariko.”

Paya is walking ahead of them. She shifts her grip on her sword.

"I was tired and delirious, and every time they told me to push, Daruk's Protection would light around me and throw everyone back. It did! That’s right! Impa stopped holding my hand after the first time, and Auntie Paya and Auntie Claree took turns getting blasted away. The only person who didn’t get thrown away from me was the prince.

”I thought I could see him there at my bedside, all glowing and golden. He'd squeeze my hand. He told me I was strong, and I could do it, and I was almost there. No one else could hear him. But they could all hear me when I spoke back to him. So I must have looked very silly.

"Or I did until the sky turned red and the Calamity howled.” 

_Link had looked back in the direction of the castle, then back at her with fear in his eyes._

“With his attention not focused on Ganon, the Calamity was gaining strength.” 

_He pressed a kiss to her knuckles._

The boards creak under her feet as they turn up another switch back.

"'Go!' I told him. 'I'll be fine. We'll be fine.'

 _He bit his lip and looked back towards the castle._ “He said he wasn't going to leave me. No one else could hold my hand. But I told him to protect us, to protect Hyrule. That's the one thing that would make him agree with me. And he vanished in a fizzle of gold light." 

“Glllrooo,” the baby says.

"That’s right. I think he would have stayed too. I think he would have damned all of Hyrule, and the Calamity would have risen again—that's how much he wanted to see your little face and hear your little voice.”

She was his Hero coming to save him. They were a team, and she was in danger, and he needed her to live, to be strong. And he’d been so focused for so long on having a child, that it seemed cruel for him to miss it. Of course, he would want to be there.

But then the baby was a boy.

She would have been crushed, she would have been furious to see disappointment on the prince’s face. So maybe it’s best he wasn’t there.

The baby kicks his feet happily against her belly. Then he finds his fist and crams it in his toothless mouth to suck on it and drool a lot.

Paya pauses, then ducks down, so Zelda does the same, scooting up to check what's ahead of them. It's a fire wizrobe with a small band of bokoblins.

Paya says, "L-let me."

Zelda nods, and Paya vaults the last few feet onto the plateau and races towards the monster. Zelda falls into her little bounce to keep the baby happy as she and Claree watch. Paya slashes so fast it's hard of follow her movements as more that glinting trails in the air. Blue runes appear over bokoblins, only to be slashed down and absorbed into blue duplicates of Paya, which double then quadruple her efficiency in cutting down monsters. She slides under the wizrobe's dancing feet, cuts down another bokoblin, and then ducks a fireball. A moment later there are no more bokoblins, and Paya's duplicates have surrounded the wizrobe. It's hard to tell what happens next, but the wizrobe explodes. 

Zelda straightens and walks the rest of the way up the plank. Paya looks more at ease now that she's worked some of her anxiety out of her system. She greets Zelda with a smile. 

There is no scaffolding up to the next plateau, but luckily Zelda has a new trick that she's bursting to try. She adjusts the baby's hat, drops to one knee in front of the cliff face, and bursts into the air as Revali's gale lifts her into the sky. The Sheikah are able to ride the gale with her, their paragliders puffing above their heads. Zelda grins, the wind whipping at her hair and the baby gurgling against her chest. For a moment she thinks she sees Revali's spirit circle her. 

They sail past the next level of the plateau. And a horde of hundreds of monsters spreads out before her.

Paya sucks in a breath beside her.

"Oh," Zelda says. To the baby she says, "That's just uncalled for, isn't it?" Then she heaves forward, straining to cover as much ground as she can, to glide as close to the tower as possible before her altitude fails her. She lands in the middle of the horde, slamming her sword into the ground hard enough to rattle the ground and blow black a few monsters. She tucks one hand around the baby's head and twists into a spin attack, clearing enough room around her for her to breathe, shift her footing, and charge. She cuts her way through the surprised mob, sweeping a path through their ranks. But their surprise doesn't last, and her balance is a bit off without the counterbalance of her back arm. She ducks and dodges, but jumping is out of the question. 

A bobklin roars and charges with a spear. Usually, she'd hold her ground, wait for the very last moment, then dart in with a flurry of swipes to take down the monster. But now she loses her nerve. She darts to the side and around and sweeps up behind the beast, leaping into and upward slash at his vulnerable back.

In her periphery, she can see the glow of the Sheikahs' duplicates darting in and out of sight. They're keeping pace with her, heading ever towards the tower, pushing forward. Zelda slides under a swinging club, comes up with a slash, a stab, lets go of the baby's head enough to throw an elbow into the exposed stomach of the bokoblin behind her, then braces the baby’s head again and follows through with a spin slash and a skip to the side as an arrow comes her way. She makes it nearly to the cliff wall, and checks behind her to find Paya nearby, but Clarre is out of sight. Zelda keeps fighting, clearing a space around the cliff base to better hold their position. Whenever she gets a second, she bounces onto her toes to try to find Claree, but there's nothing. Paya's searching for her too, and they share a look, before Paya says, "Go on! I'll get her."

Paya darts in front of her, keeping back the monsters long enough for Zelda to drop to one knee and for Revali's gale to burst around her. As she flies into the air, Paya rushes back into the fray. As she flies higher, she can make out Claree in the crowd, slowed down by another wizrobe, but still fighting.

Relieved, she turns in the air to face the last level of the plateau at the base of the tower. The malice is back, filling into a pool around the base of the tower.

The horde of monsters at the tower's base is back too.

She glances down at the baby. "This is not ideal."

He frowns at her.

She tucks away her paraglider and, in the moment she hangs in the air above the horde, she whips out her bow and aims a half dozen shock arrows into the mob, one after another after another, lighting up the plateau until it glows like a semicircle around the tower, until her face flickers in shades of green and yellow. Electricity branches over the monsters' heads, rolling as if the current is rising from the ground instead of raining down from above. While they're frozen with rictus, she lands, pulls out the Sheikah slate, and grabs a metal crate out of the malice. There is no elegance to her movements. She swings it back and forth, batting the bokoblins into the malice and off the cliff, crumpling them against each other and shoving them out of her way.

The Sheikah catch up, immediately taking off in the other direction around the tower, until they meet are the far side and the horde is no more. Zelda lets the metal box drop. She's still for half a moment, then falls into her bob to keep the baby's fussing at bay.

"Are you alright?" she asks Claree.

"Yeah. No problem," Claree says. "Just a short delay."

They all look up at the tower.

"What now?"

Zelda walks back round the tower to where a row of pillars have fallen like dominoes until they've crashed against the tower's side. "Last time, I toppled those and rode the top one over." Now, however, the malice has climbed its way up the pillars so there's no longer a place to put her feet. "This time, I'm going to fly." She kneels again, uses the last burst of Revali's gift, and flies up past the reach of the malice to land on one of the balconies. It's hard to climb with the baby, and he doesn't care for how she's not bouncing, but they reach the top with minimal trouble. 

The tower shines blue and the malice below them fizzles and poofs away. She looks down at the refreshed map to find that her location is now marked, but all of the shrines in the area are gone. She works through the problem, half out loud, half to the baby. "It feels as if I still have the health the Goddess granted after giving her the spirit orbs. The monks are probably corrupted once more, but aside from rescuing them, there's no real benefit in doing the shrines again. Except it might help the prince.”

She looks towards the castle, off in the distance. The wind whips at her ears, and softly she hears him, almost as if she imagines it, as if she summoned the sound of his voice through sheer desire to hear it.

"Zelda."

"We're coming," she tells the air. "We're coming."


	6. Chapter 6

In September, when Zelda woke on the plateau, the prince was a benevolent voice in her head, a singular point of attachment in a lonely wilderness. She was compelled to rescue him. He was a pull at her ribs, leading her ever forward. He held the evil where it was, and she pruned it back. They were a team, and together they would save Hyrule.

She picked up memories as she went: memories of a man with boundless optimism who constantly frustrated her. At first she was confused how someone so obnoxious could be the same person she felt compelled to save. But as time went on and more emotions came through with he memories, she realized they were friends. She realized that she was only able to call him on his absurdities because he liked her enough to find her criticisms helpful rather than offensive. She was angry with him for endangering himself, because she honestly cared about him. They were partners.

In December, Zelda started having achingly lustful dreams. She was later informed that it was a symptom of her pregnancy, but at the time she had no idea she was pregnant and just thought she’d gone without human contact for far too long. She'd wake panting and feverish and haunted by the feeling of bare skin and blue eyes squeezed closed. She'd wake up with the horrifying certainty that the prince could see her. While he was sacrificing himself to defend all of Hyrule in an eternal battle with evil made manifest, she was dreaming of him licking the sweat from her neck, dreaming of the heady noises he might make as he thrust into her.

It was just that he was handsome, and that he took up so much space in her brain.

"I respect you!" she shouted into the night, and felt horribly foolish when she received no answer. 

She stated sleeping outside of corrupted shrines. That way, she would get a full night's sleep before going in and cleansing them. Yes. That was it. It wasn't that the prince probably couldn't see her dreams when she was so close to the malice. 

In February, she found a memory that changed everything.

#

They are exhausted when they reach the stable, and Zelda's so tired that she makes a rude gesture at the ominous magenta lights of the shrine across the canyon and leaves it for tomorrow. She strips out of all her armor with a groan, and Claree collapses straight onto a bed. The Sheikah's magic is frightening and powerful, but it's physically demanding and mentally taxing. Claree complains that it's the mental part that wears her out most.

Zelda changes the baby's diaper and then changes her clothes into something comfortable. No one brings infants out this way, so the woman who works at the stable is extra sweet on the baby. She spends a long time squishing his chipmunk cheeks and pretending to eat his chubby foot. He is unimpressed, but the woman is smitten with him anyway. She gives him a toy, flat and soft and about the size of Zelda's hand, made of some kind of crinkly material sewn into the shape of a horse. Zelda puts it in his hand, and he reflexively grips it and shakes it around. He's not impressed with the horse either, but it's confusing enough to keep his attention.

Zelda sets herself at one of the tables with an abundance of dinner spread out before her and lets the horse toy entertain the baby while he sits in her lap, propped against her chest and arm. Paya takes up the other half of the table with two swords and a half dozen knives. With tired, deliberate motions, she cleans and sharpens everything. They’re both almost done and the baby wants to eat when Claree pulls herself up from her nap and joins them. She cleans one of Paya's knives as the stable attendant clears away some of Zelda's empty plates and brings Claree some dinner.

"You look very deep in thought," Claree says, and Zelda looks up from frowning at her spoon.

"Yes, I’m…considering.”

Claree folds her fingers together into a table and rests her chin atop them, waiting for Zelda to share. It makes Zelda laugh before her thoughts loom back over her.

"The Windblight was much more challenging that the first two blights."

"Oh?"

"Yes. It destroyed parts of the Divine Beast and threatened Rito Village during our battle. The Waterblight and Fireblight didn’t do anything like that. Vah Rudania never rolled around to change the battleground, and Vah Ruta never stampeded towards the Domain. After seeing the corrupted tower and the corrupted shrines, I'm wondering if perhaps Paya is right. That the Calamity was able to gain strength while the prince was distracted. It retook some ground and made the blights stronger."

Claree tips her head in consideration, then says, “Or—and don't take this the wrong way—maybe it was harder because you were just a month postpartum and you haven't slept more than three hours at a stretch in weeks." Claree gives her a meaningful look.

Zelda frowns at her, then shakes her head in annoyance. "No. I don't think that's it."

The sun is setting, so new people are coming in for the night, and more are preparing to leave, taking advantage of the night’s chill to set out into the desert. A salesman and some travelers get settled, and accordion music drifts in from outside. Her eyebrows lift and she turns toward the sound. 

“That sounds like Kass.”

“Who?”

“A Rito bard. He’s traveling Hyrule learning ancient songs. A lot of them are about how to find shrines.”

“That sounds helpful.”

She hums in agreement. “We should go say hello when the baby’s done.” A flutter of excitement fills her chest at the thought of showing Kass her son. He was concerned about her the last few times she saw him, seeing as she was heavily pregnant, waddling around Hyrule, paragliding off cliffs and calling down lightning. He told her stories of his own children and how much he missed them. He advised her to rub ice chuchu jelly into the soles of her aching feet.

When they go out to see him, he stops his song at the sight of her, and she holds up the baby, who’s now asleep in her arms. He grins at her, and lets go of his accordion with one hand to brush a wingtip over his little face. It’s the first time she’s ever seen him let go of his accordion.

“Oh, he’s beautiful,” he says in a hushed voice.

“I think so,” Zelda says.

“Forgive me, but I don’t have a gift. I didn’t know our paths would cross again so soon.”

“There’s no need to apologize. And no need for a gift.”

“Would you like a song?”

She smiles up at him. “Do you know a song about this place?”

He chuckles back at her. “Sadly no. I’m passing through. But I know other songs.”

Zelda takes a seat by the cooking pot, Paya and Claree sitting beside her, and Kass plays as he sings about fields full of flowers and snowy mountains you can slide down. He sings of heart shaped ponds and a man who faced off against an army of bees to collect honey. Paya quietly asks if he knows an old Sheikah tune, and Kass says his teacher was Sheikah and taught him all the old folk songs. When he plays, Zelda can see the hills over Kakariko, can feel the morning fog on her face. She can smell the plum trees and tilled earth. Paya closes her eyes and looks so at peace and yet so homesick that Zelda’s heart could break.

"Do you know…” Claree asks, her face pinching as she tries to remember. “Oh, we just heard it at another stable. It's a drinking song about the prince. It's about all the ladies he seduced!" She cackles.

Paya hisses at her.

Kass raises his eyebrows. His eyes dart about, bouncing from Zelda to Paya to the few other visitors who have come outside to get some fresh air now that it’s cooler. "Yes. I’m familiar with that song. It's an old song, from before the Calamity. It was actually written by my teacher."

That surprises Zelda. She doesn’t know what to make of it.

"Really!?” Claree squeals. “But now all the bards make up their own verses. Did he sing it the same way every time or did he mix it up?”

“He taught me a single version.” 

“I imagine you can tell a lot about a bard from what they say."

Kass hesitates. “Yes. His version is…different.”

“How?”

Paya cuts in. “You—You’ve made him uncomfortable. He's a professional. He's not here to sing l-lewd songs."

Kass plays a soft note, holding it out. His eyes drift to Zelda's. Maybe they've become good enough friends that he's worried about offending her. Perhaps he's worried about singing a vulgar song in front of the baby.

She doesn’t want to hear the song, but she’s suffered through much worse. And it’s foolish to harbor such jealousy in the first place. She can tough it out for a few minutes to please Claree. Maybe Kass’ version will be decent. Maybe his version will be so good that Claree will not ask other bards. 

She shrugs her shoulders, pretending she doesn’t mind.

Still Kass hesitates, but then he plays the first phrase, much to Claree's delight and Paya's aggravation. His voice is fuller than most bard's, the opening chorus filled with a level of gravitas that she's rarely heard in a stable.

_Hylia, Hylia, give us a princess / The queen is dead and left only a son / Hylia, Hylia, give us your blessing / Your golden power can save everyone._

He closes his eyes and describes a woman with golden hair and a golden laugh. She carries herself with pride and her cheeks are rosy as if she's already been thoroughly kissed. Kass sings as if he's the one in love with the woman. The prince is hardly worthy of her, which is a vastly different angle from the one most bards take. She slips a gentle hand around the back of the prince's neck and draws him in, and he’s doomed. 

The next verse is about a brilliant woman, who's witty (much wittier than the prince) and intelligent (much smarter than the prince). She approaches problems with passion, which is a shame, because the prince is a problem. Claree laughs. 

Paya huffs at the slight against the prince, but she's calmed since Kass' version of the song turns out to not be vulgar in the slightest. 

An uncomfortable prickle creeps up the back of Zelda’s neck.

The final verse is about a woman talented with sword and shield and bow, fierce and loyal and protective. She slams the prince against a tree, grabs him by the front of his shirt, and sinks her teeth into his lower lip. They return to the castle with him grinning like a fool, looking as if he was mauled by a bear. "If only," Kass sings. "But I shouldn't complain.Oh Hylia, Hylia, give us a princess. The queen is dead and left only a son. Hylia, Hylia, give us your blessing, your golden power can save everyone."

Zelda barely hears as everyone around her applauds. She’s dizzy as she stands. “Zelda?” She walks away, towards the desert. It's claustrophobic in the canyon. She needs air. She needs...She needs...

She takes a seat on the edge of the canyon, her feet in the sand and her butt on the stone. She hugs the baby close and tucks her shawl tighter around them.

All three of those verses were about her. 

It’s hard to breathe.

Someone in the past knew. Despite all his conquests, someone wrote a whole song about _her_. Not dozens of different women. Just her. What did that mean? And it sounded as if he…as if he…

What a ridiculous, cruel song.

She takes a deep breath and looks out at the night, at the way the stars overwhelm the sky and how the moon is reflected on the sand. It reminds her of the Spring of Courage.

She froze when she stepped through the dragon’s mouth and up to the spring. She was there to deliver a dragon scale and find the next shrine, but she knew that place. She’d been there before. There was a picture of it in her slate. In her dreams she thought it was a pool, but it was the spring itself. She knew the spot where her back had pressed against the edge, knew how warm the water was, how warm the prince’s skin was under her hands. 

She’d thought her dreams were wild imaginings, brought on by a handsome young man and her loneliness.

Her stomach sunk as if the floor had fallen out from under her. For the first time, she knew what she would see in the memory. Her soul rebelled against it. She didn’t want it, didn’t want what it would mean that she was one of dozens of women who’d slept with him.

But then maybe…maybe…

Hope pushed pushed her forward, one step in front of the other until she stood in front of the Goddess statue. (In front of the Goddess statue! Her face heated at the blasphemy.)

Her hand shook as she reached for the slate and checked the image. The sound of the water and the angle of the light were just right so that—

She stood guard, her back to Link—the prince— _Link_ —as he prayed in silence.

A splash in the water behind her, and he lifted his voice. “Zelda, let me borrow your sword.”

“What?” She turned to frown at his back. Her eyes caught on the line of his throat, on the stretch of his arms. His hair shone in the moonlight. His damp, white tunic stuck to his back, so she could see the ridge of his spine, the taper of his waist.

He was still looking up at the Goddess when he explained, “She needs a sacrifice. It’s the Spring of Courage, so I need to…I need to prove my devotion.” He turned to her, his eyes pleading. “Let me borrow your sword.”

“No.” Just to make a point, she sheathed her sword and frowned at him.

He hissed in frustration and scrapped a hand through his hair. “Zelda—”

“No.”

He splashed towards her. “She needs to see I’m not afraid.”

“You can’t borrow the Master Sword.”

His body slumped as he realized she was right, as the fire drained out of him. He hung his head. “This is pointless, isn’t it? She’s not even listening to me. I’m not the one she wants to talk to. I never have been, and I never will be. Everyone’s right, and this is a waste of time.”

He turned back to the Goddess statue.

“Damn you,” he said. “You’d rather Hyrule fall than let me…I’ve been your most devoted servant…”

Zelda’s heart squeezed, and that squeeze pulled her into the water. He didn’t move until she placed a hand on his shoulder, guiding him to turn.

She lifted her hands to his face and guided him to raise his head and look at her. He didn’t though. His eyes closed before he rested his forehead against hers. As if it was easier to be this close to her, easier to accept comfort, easier to admit his defeat with his eyes closed. His damp hands found her waist, and her heart clenched. 

“I hate this,” he whispered. “I want to save Hyrule. I want to hep my people. But she doesn’t want me to have—She doesn’t want me.”

She stroked the back of her fingers over his cheek, so grieved by his heartbreak, so startled by his desperation that she spoke without thinking. “Then she’s a fool.”

His eyes opened, striking blue, with an intensity that would take her breath away had she not known their exact color in her soul, had she not weathered the steel of them a dozen times before. She met his gaze head-on, terrified that she’d let that slip and yet owning it now that it was out.

He covered her hand with his own and brought it to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. He looked down at her with such fire in his eyes, with fear and a dare and a want. _Courage_ , she thought. She slipped her hand to the back of his neck and drew him down into a kiss.

His fingers clutched at her waist, pulling her tight. His chest pressed hard against her breastplate as her hands dug into his hair, pulling him deeper. His tunic was thin, and she could feel so much of him, his body shuddering under her hands, his tongue more desperately seeking her own. 

He walked her backwards through the spring, finding the buckles on her forearms to shuck off her gauntlets as she fumbled at the pauldrons on her shoulders. He found the bare skin of her wrist and sucked a kiss her her pulse point. She gasped, her fist twisting around his belt and pulling him on. His kisses traveled further down the inside of her arm, ending at the soft inside of her elbow, her arm now pulled over his shoulder. He opened his eyes to look at her, his mouth on her skin. It was very hard to breathe. Her armor was too tight. It needed to come off.

Her back hit the edge of the spring, and they were kissing again, a deep, pained kiss while they both scrambled to get her armor off. He yanked at the buckle on her baldric, and she caught the Master Sword before it fell into the spring, fumbling it onto the ground behind her while he unclasped her chest plate and pulled off her talbbard and dug his hands under her heavy under-tunic. Together, they hefted it over her head, so she emerged with her hair frizzing around her face and her cheeks flushed and her eyelids heavy. She emerged soft and yielding as his hands pressed divots against her bare skin and her chest melded against his.

And then the memories unspooled. She knew there was more, knew how there’d been nothing but sweat slicked between them in the humidity, how they’d wrapped around each other, her legs around his waist and his arms clutching her back, how he’d tried to cushion her spine from the edge of the spring, how they’d breathed together for a time as if every exhale was punched from their bodies. She remembered the low, straining huffs of his breath and how taut his muscles were from his abs to his shoulders. She knew it didn't stop in the spring. It didn't stop beside the spring as he held her wrist over her head, as his face scrunched up with a growl that sent her flying, her heel digging into his ass, urging him deeper. It didn't stop in his tent, with her in his lap in a slow, shallow rock that ratcheted them both tighter, tighter, tighter, where he looked up at her with eyes so piercing that she dragged his face down her her breast out of sheer embarrassment. It didn't stop on the way back home, where he pulled the band from her braid and buried his face in her neck and swore a blue streak into the shelter of her hair, of her skin.

When the memories finally faded, it was hard to catch her breath.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, urging herself to calm.

She hadn’t known. She hadn’t—She thought they were partners.

A thousand pieces fell into place.

Her head snapped up to the Goddess' face, to her gentle smile that suddenly seemed condescending.

"Oh shit," she breathed. She whipped out the slate and forgot completely about the shrine behind the Goddess statue, about the rumors of the horse god and the Great Bridge of Hylia. She warped to Kakariko immediately, stumbled into Impa’s house and feel to her knees gasping before the Sheikah. When she managed to raise her eyes she said, “I think I’m pregnant.”

Zelda isn’t stupid. True, she did a stupid thing. Repeatedly. She let herself fall for a playboy prince. But now, with the benefit of time and distance, she can see the timing of it. He’d given up on receiving the Goddess’ sealing powers, and within the hour he had sex with the only woman within miles. He’d switched seamlessly back to his father’s plan. 

And she’d let him. 

And it had worked, because she’d gotten pregnant. 

And then she gave birth to a boy.

Whoever wrote Kass’ song had no idea what they were talking about.


	7. Chapter 7

Zelda freed the Divine Beast Vah Ruta first. She defeated Waterblight Ganon, and Mipha's spirit appeared to thank her. "My gift to you," she said, and pressed her hand to Zelda's stomach. A blue light like healing waters rippled out from Mipha's hand. "There!" Mipha said and looked up at her to smile so widely that her eyes squeezed closed. Zelda assumed that Mipha had healed some internal damage from the battle.

"You have my warmest wishes, my dearest friend. Stay safe.“

Zelda freed the Divine Beast Vah Rudania second. She defeated Fireblight Ganon, and Daruk's spirit appeared to thank her. "I wanna give you something. It's a special power of mine called Daruk's Protection. It's no good to me now that I'm a spirit... but it might be useful for you."

"You can give that to me?"

"Of course! Haven't...ah. I see. Well, this will come in extra handy then!" 

He didn't explain himself further. Zelda didn't ask.

“Take care of the little guy!”

#

In the morning, Zelda purifies the shrine across the way. It's full of simple electric puzzles and a couple of guardian scouts. She readies herself to fight the monk again, but he's gone. After she breaks the translucent barrier around the dais where he once sat, she heads back to the stable, where Paya is trying to get the crying baby to look at her even though he's face down on his belly.

"Just turn your head, starshine!" She reaches out to guide his face to the side. He's surprised out of his tantrum by the sight of her face. 

And then he wants to snuggle. His fit picks up again until she sweeps him off the bed and into her arms and tells him of her adventure across the canyon.

Zelda takes a nap before giving the baby a bath with a damp cloth. She sleeps when the baby does in the afternoon, but wakes up tired. She's always tired lately.

At sun set, they pack up and bundle up. The baby's wearing the woolen hat he got in Rito Village along with matching booties.

The desert is chilly and dry. They take more breaks than the baby requires just to drink water that grows colder the longer they're out. Zelda realizes that she's warmer than the Sheikah, who don't have snuggly babies strapped to their chests. The bazaar is lit up in the night, a twinkling beacon in the dark. The tower of the inn looms as only a shadow in the dark, only visible as an absence of stars. 

The sky is lightening when they arrive, and they tiredly get space at the inn and pass out.

Zelda wakes up sore and gives in enough to let Paya give her some salve to rub into her legs and back. Feeling better, she lets the Sheikah sleep and takes the baby to visit the bazaar, letting him look at the colors of the trinkets and taste hydromelon juice off her finger as she treats herself to one. She lays him on a blanket by the water and catches a frog for him look at and tries to get him to do his neck exercises. 

In the afternoon, she heads to the edge of the oasis and tries to match the outline of the mountains in the distance to one of the last photographs on the slate. The photo is clearly in the desert, and there are palm trees in the foreground. Kara Kara is the only spot she knows of where there are palm tress besides the city, and the city has no trees outside the walls. She looked for the source of the picture the last time she was here, and she had no luck then either.

The dust storm obscures too much for her to judge, and there’s no telling if the mountains in the distance are even the same as they were.

When the sun is about to set, they ready for the last leg of their trip, which will take them to the city.

"Are you sure we can bring him into the city?" Claree asks, frowning as they bundle the baby into the front pack.

"Of course we can. The city has plenty of children." The question actually brings Zelda pause. What kind of rumors have they heard about Gerudo Town if they think children wouldn't be allowed inside? She might want to give Claree and Paya a crash course on Gerudo culture and acceptable behavior while they walk. She doesn't want the Sheikah to offend anyone.

Claree rolls her eyes. "Because he's a boy. No boys in the city."

"Oh!" Zelda blinks down at the baby, who is nuzzling into her chest and blinking sleepily even as she finishes the last few straps on the front pack. "But he's a baby. Surely women are allowed to bring in their children despite the child's gender."

"But Gerudo don't have boy babies, so it's not really an issue."

Again, Zelda's embarrassed to say that she hasn't thought of this.

She frowns and walks up to the innkeeper. "Excuse me, but it just occurred to us that we might have an issue bringing my son into Gerudo Town."

"That's a voe?" the woman asks. Her eyebrows hike, and she looks down at the baby in surprise.

"He's a baby."

The innkeeper shakes her head. "No voe in Gerudo Town."

"But...he's an infant. He barely even counts as an entity separate from me. Surely there's some sort of age at which people qualify as ‘voes.’ Before puberty or before he can talk or after he's weened? It's not as if he's showing obnoxious voe behavior. He's hardly harassing anyone."

"I don't know about that. He's pretty demanding of you."

Zelda frowns. This is not the way she expected this conversation to go. "Is there some sort of...pass I could get for him?"

"No voe in Gerudo Town."

"But—“ Zelda stares at her in exasperation. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Most voe stay here and send a vai member of their party into the city."

"That won’t—“

She cuts Zelda off with, "And some—“ She gives her a sharp look. "Hang around on the roof a little bit after sunset."

She then turns away from Zelda completely to rearrange some books on the shelves behind the counter.

Zelda trades looks with Claree and Paya. Without another word, they file outside, and Zelda circles the inn until she finds a ladder to the top. 

"A-are y-you sure?" Paya asks.

Zelda pauses. "Surely there's something secret up here that can help us enter the city."

"O-o-or not."

"Yeah," Claree says with a cringe. "She said some men do it the legitimate way and wait for female colleagues. That implies that shady characters hang around here."

"The fact that we can't enter the city legally makes us shady characters." With that, she turns and climbs the ladder.

There is hardly a secret cabal of men atop the inn. In fact, there's just one Hylian woman dressed in Gerudo clothes, sitting cross-legged as she watches the moon. She turns on their approach and rises smoothly to her feet with a "Hello."

"Hello," Zelda says. "We were lead to believe that you could help us." Maybe there are secret passes into Gerudo Town that they can buy for a small fortune. Or maybe this woman knows who to bribe.

"What does a pretty vai like you need with my services?"

"What kind of services do you provide?"

The woman giggles. "Well, that would be telling!"

Zelda is too impatient for this. "I want to bring the baby with me into Gerudo Town. Do you know a way to make that happen?"

The woman is visibly startled. "The baby?"

"It's not as if I can leave him here."

"Ooooh. A boy baby." She takes a step forward, tilting her head to get a look. The baby's sleeping, making his lizard face with his lower lip sucked into his mouth.

"How precious! Oh, he's so pretty, this won't be a problem at all. For 600 rupees, I can give him a right-proper disguise."

"Disguise?"

“600 rupees."

"And that would—Wait. What kind of disguise?" Maybe she'll make the baby look like a small dog.

The woman digs through a bag at her feet, and comes up with a thin box. "600 rupees, and I'll show you the trick."

Zelda hesitates, still not knowing what's going on, but trusting that she's fast enough to gut this woman should she try to hurt her son.

She nods, and the woman opens the box, carefully removing a band of gold and jewels. It stretches between her fingers and she holds it out, waiting. Zelda realizes what it is and gently untucks the baby's head from where it's secure against her chest and slips off his little hat. The gold band has some stretch to it, and the woman eases it around his head and gently removes her fingers so it rests easily in his hair and a pendant rests against his forehead.

"And there you go," the woman says. "Vai baby."

"This will work to get him into the city?"

"Not only will it get him into the city, but it will protect him from the heat."

Zelda's muscles ease in relief, and she reaches into her wallet for the rupees.

"Wait, that's it?" Claree says. " _That's_ the disguise."

The woman shrugs. "Yeah. He's a baby. It's not hard."

"If it's not hard, it's not worth _600 rupees_!"

Zelda steps in. "We're paying for the information, and 600 rupees is fine for heat resistance." Then to the woman, she asks, "Can we put the headband on him just before we're in sight of the gate? We wanted to cross tonight and he needs his hat."

"I'll let you in on another secret."

"Ask how much she'll charge," Claree snipes, but the woman ignores her.

"You can put the headband on in sight of the guards. They'll watch grown men change into vai clothes and then let them inside. It's not about deception. It's about a willingness to make an effort."

"Thank you," Zelda says.

The woman waves her off, then in a cutesy voice she signs to the baby, "Goodbye, my precious!"

The night is getting on, and they need to move if they want to reach the city by sunrise. It's not so hard to walk through the desert if they stay on the path, but it is hard to see where the path is. The moon lights the sand in bright white and purple shadow, and millions of stars stretch out over their heads. In the desert in the distance, she can see lizalfos lying in wait, but they don't approach. A few electric keese try their luck approaching them, but Zelda shoots them out of the sky if Paya doesn't get them first.

They manage to make it to the city with only two breaks, though the baby is awake and squirmy by the time they get in sight of the gates. They stop to switch out the baby's headgear. His face scrunches up in displeasure, and he moves his arms like he wants to take it off, but he's still not sure where his head is yet.

Zelda gives a dirty look to the pink shrine outside the city. She'll have to cleanse it again before she sets out for Naboris, or she won't have a warp point back here.

The guards don't even look at the baby as they enter, and maybe the headband does nothing, but she'd rather they do something unnecessary than be sent back at the gate. The town is not awake yet, and Zelda leads the way to the inn, where they'll set up a base camp of sorts.

She attends to the baby's immediate needs, but now he's up and ready for his day of exploring a whole, new, bright world and learning to use his arms. He's ready to play, which generally involves staring at people's faces and gurgling while they sing to him. Zelda, on the other hand, was up all night walking through sand, so she's ready to sleep for another hundred years. Her thighs ache, and her head hurts, and Paya apparently says something to her several times before she startles, and says, "Pardon?"

Paya frowns, takes the baby from her arms, and points threateningly toward the bed. Paya must take the baby into another room, because the sounds of his squeaks and cries don't wake her for a solid four hours until Paya returns and places a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Don't get up all the way. Just feed him and hand him back." Both Zelda and the baby doze off a bit, until Claree appears to quietly take him away. Paya is passed out in the closest bed. Claree smiles as she coos quietly at the baby, but there are dark smudges under her eyes.

All three of them have looked better. 

It's mid-afternoon by the time they get their acts together enough to visit the palace. They've all managed to get a bath, and Zelda has managed to polish her armor a little bit. The town is alive and bustling, and both Claree and the baby need to ogle at absolutely everything.

They reach the throne room, and Riju shrieks, "Zelda!" and bounces off her chair, much to the chagrin of her bodyguard, Buliara.

The last time Zelda was in this room, she remembered Urbosa gifting her a knife that Zelda has since lost. Urbosa explained that the prince was optimistic to the point of recklessness—both a charm and a fault. He needed someone to rein him in. Urbosa gave her a sideways look. “I do not believe that person is you. He gets too hopeful around you. You let yourself get swept up in his plans.”

Riju runs up and leans in to get a look at the baby, who stares up at her with huge eyes. He stares at her lips with his mouth hanging open, as if concerned by her choice in lipstick color. But then again, who knows.

"Look at her little face! Can I hold her? You know, with you carrying her like that, you don't look all that different from the last time you were here."

Zelda's not sure how offended she should be by that comment and lets it pass. She unbuckles the front pack so Riju can at least see him better. "It's good to see you," she says.

"It's good to see you! The soldiers had a bet going if you would show back up again or not. I told them _of course_ you would. You'd promised. You'd promised to get my thunder helm back from the Yiga and you did, even though it was so dangerous sneaking into the Yiga's hideout, and you were enormous, and it's shocking you were able to hide anywhere and not have your belly stick out, and it's shocking you could move fast enough to not get caught. You managed that, so if you said you'd be back after you gave birth, it was going to happen. Ooo! Let me hold her."

"You have to support the head." Zelda moves her arms into Riju's space as she passes over the baby. After an awkward moment, she gets him situated in a safe way.

"Look at her cheeks! Don't you just want to rub them?"

Zelda grins.

"What's her name?"

"I haven't picked one."

"What?! No. All babies need names, they're not full tribe members until their naming. You can name her...Sofya."

"Chief Riju, you cannot name other people's babies," Buliara chides in exasperation.

"Why not?" she asks, then spins on Zelda before getting an answer. "Why haven't you named her?"

Zelda shrugs a shoulder, still looking down at her baby. 

“She doesn’t want to name the baby without the father’s input,” Claree says, because Claree feels comfortable saying whatever she feels like whenever she feels like.

Riju scoffs. "Why would you wait on _a voe_ to do something as important as naming your child?”

"It just doesn't feel right,” Zelda says.

"Well, you'd better track him down in a hurry then. Or don't even bother, I've named her already. Sofya."

She spins off to show the baby some shiny things, chatting with him at a hundred miles an hour. Paya and Claree move to follow her as she whisks him away to her room and the array of stuffed animals she has there.

Buliara steps up to Zelda then and addresses her quietly. "It's good to see you fared well."

"Thank you."

"How are you holding up?"

Zelda heaves a breath. "I'm tried. And, honestly, I feel slow."

Buliara nods. "Probably because you're tired. You should rest before you make your strike on the Divine Beast."

"I need to cleanse the shrine outside of town first. Do you know when it changed back to magenta?"

"A little more than a month ago."

"The same time as the tower?"

"Yes."

This means they are right about the Calamity seizing its opportunity to retake the area.

"You should rest," Buliara repeats.

"I definitely will before I face the blight." Until then, she'll probably push through.

Buliara gives her a look that says she knows what Zelda has planned and disapproves. Zelda ignores her and follows after her baby.

Riju has laid him on her bed, and holds up stuffed animals for him to see before stacking them next to him. "And this is Alice,” she says, holding up a stuffed sand seal. "Look at her beautiful collar. Those are real sapphires." She drops the sand seal to the side, moving it too fast for his jerky eyesight to follow. "I've never met a Sheikah before," she says, picking back up a conversation with Paya and Claree, "You'll stay in the palace of course."

"W-w-we couldn't," Paya says.

"Nonsense! You'll have privacy here that you can't get at the inn. And we can supply everything you need for your attack on Vah Naboris."

Zelda accepts immediately.

#

The shrine outside the palace is full of malice and electricity. The main goal is to move metal objects to conduct the electricity to the switches that will open the gate to the monk, but this is made difficult by the fact that the malice creeping over the floor either doesn't conduct electricity at all or fires off what it comes in contact with in unpredictable branches of lightning. She leaves the baby with Claree back at the palace and brings Paya with her. Paya leaves the puzzle portion to her, and does a good job of staying out of the way of both the lightning and Zelda. It's slightly easier the second time around, but the malice has spread to different locations, making it different enough to give her a challenge. Malice covers one of the barrels she has to use, meaning she has to rely on the discharge to get anything done. Again, the monk is gone.

Riju feeds them a tremendous feast. She presents the Sheikah with scimitars and Zelda with new Gerudo-made clothes since the set she bought the last time she was here no longer fits. Also, apparently it's no longer appropriate. The vai at the shop didn't tell her, but the outfit she had was traditional grab for showing off a pregnancy, and now she needs a slightly different cut or people will think she's trying to show off being barely pregnant, and everyone will think she's overly-excited and judge her as foolish. Zelda barely wears anything but her armor and would have considered the feast a prefect gift, but she thankful for Riju's generosity all the same. 

Riju absolutely spoils the baby. He gets several stuffed toys and a new blanket and diaper covers made of bright silk, which seems ridiculous. He also gets a great deal of jewelry: tiny rings for his wrists made of solid gold soft enough to be bent open to get his pudgy wrist in and then bent closed so they don't come off. He gets a new headband, which is markedly nicer than the one they bought in Kara Kara. The gemstones make it look as if he's wearing a flower crown. 

In town, Zelda stocks up on arrows and buys herself some earrings to help with electricity. She wonders if she'll be able to wear them once the baby starts grabbing everything he can reach, a phase which she's heard will come soon.

She spends as much time as she can with the baby, which Paya says is absurd because she spends _all_ her time with the baby, but it doesn't feel that way to Zelda. Tomorrow she'll leave him for the attack on Vah Naboris, and even though she'll see him every few hours, it won't be the same.

She lingers over him the next morning, and Riju has to hook her elbow around Zelda's arm and pull her from the room.

The baby starts to cry, and Zelda nearly does as well.

With the thunder helm on Riju's head, they're able to approach the Divine Beast, although they must travel through the sand storm, dust pinging like rain against her armor, squeaking as it burrows between plates that rub together. Every inch of her skin feels dusty, and there's sand up her nose, sand in her ears, sand gritting between her fingers as she grips her bow. She squints and presses her lips tight and keeps herself in the green glowing dome of Riju's protection. The helm is far too big for Riju's head, and she keeps lifting a hand to adjust it, causing her sand seal to drift to one side. Zelda's rented sand seal cost twice as much as usual, because the saleswoman found out where Zelda was taking it. It's well behaved, but not the fastest, nor the brightest. 

The Divine Beast first appears as purple lights that turn out to be its feet as its dark form rises out of the storm. The glow is not quite the pink of malice, and she guesses at why that might be, but then leaves it. The odd color makes the battle less frightening. The beast is so huge that she has to crane her neck to look up at it, then stops herself because the battle is on the ground. The ground shakes with the beast's every step, throwing up sand, causing the ground to undulate. She takes them straight beneath the beast and, with eight shots, the purple glow is gone. A mystery never to be solved. 

And then the beast’s legs give out.

And they're still under it.

"Go!" Zelda shouts, and they skid to the side, Riju between its legs, Zelda under one knee that's coming down, down, down. Her sand seal makes it under, and Zelda ducks to follow, and then the crash of disturbed sand hits her, throwing her from her shield and throwing her face first into a dune rising like a wave. 

She spits sand and blood from her mouth as she pushes herself to sitting and rubs her neck. It feels as if the side of her face has been scrubbed off.

"Zelda! Zelda, it's rising!"

What?

She spins, and the shaking around her isn't her adrenaline. Vah Naboris is trying to get its feet back under it.

Zelda claws her way out of the dune and runs, leaping onto a ramp that's two feet off the ground and rising, slanting. She throws herself forward as much as she can before the angle turns too steep and she falls to her stomach and clings. Her nails dig into the texture of the ground and she grits her teeth and prays, wind whipping past her, their sharp rise pressing her down, down, the machinery of the beast screaming so loud she can feel it through her chest plate.

And then the beast is up. The pressure lifts from her chest, and the ramp settles back into a climbable angle as the camel's back legs find their place. Zelda pushes herself up and hurries aboard, practically sagging in relief when she's enclosed enough to not be in danger of falling. She activates the warp point, and Urbosa's voice drifts over her. Her heart is still pounding when she warps back to Gerudo Town.


	8. Chapter 8

Here is a list of things that Zelda remembers being furious with Prince Link about:

  1. He asked her what she would do if her destiny wasn’t decided for her. When she didn’t answer, he’d grinned and announced that he would have been a chef.
  2. He kept running away to pray, putting himself, her job, and the fate of Hyrule in jeopardy had he died because she wasn’t there to protect him.
  3. He would flirt with her incessantly.
  4. She doesn’t have the whole memory, just flashes of it. But he was on his knees in front of her, begging her for—for—for something. She thinks they were on a bridge. His eyes were desperate, and she hated it. She knows she hated it. She can’t remember why.
  5. She can’t remember why.



#

Zelda activates three terminals aboard the Divine Beast before she needs to return to the baby again. Paya fusses over her, insisting on another layer of salve on the cuts on her face that she got during her battle with Vah Naboris and a meal and a shoulder rub. Zelda falls asleep during the shoulder rub and wakes up to the baby wanting to be fed again. 

He has trouble burping and is fussy and squirmy because of it. She walks back and forth across their guest room, humming and patting him, absently looking out the window at the desert beyond.

And then there it is.

She stops pacing and stares. The baby's fussing pulls her out of it, and she drops into her bobbing dance while she pulls out her slate and compares the view with the next to last photograph.

"Look!" she says. "To the south. There's that area with the palm trees, and in the background there—the distant mountains." So distant they're probably outside Hyrule. She grins and holds out the slate to show Paya how the silhouette of the mountains matches the landscape in the picture. "The memory is there."

The baby burps and she smiles down at him and praises him for a job well done, before she turns back to the Sheikah and asks, "What is that place?"

"I don't know," Claree says. 

"It doesn't look far." She's already moving, darting out into the hallway to ask the first guard she sees.

It's the sand seal rally. It's not too far.

"Let's go," Zelda announces, putting the front pack back on. "The temperature will be nice for a few hours."

The Sheikah think this is a bad idea. She should rest if she's not working her way through Vah Naboris. They have a point. But also, they can't understand what it's like to have a memory dangled in front of them like this. It’s a siren call that will distract her if she tries to ignore it. They rent sand seals, which Paya hates, but she attacks the challenge with the same level of stubborn dedication with which she attacks everything else. Zelda pulls up a flap on the front pack to cover the baby's head completely. He's gone to sleep and doesn't notice. She takes it slow.

As they get closer, there's a prickling sensation on the back of her neck. The sand is less movable, as if the bedrock is right below their feet. 

It occurs to her that if she came here with the prince, he wouldn't be allowed in the city, so they would have had to house him..."Here." She skids off the sand seal and takes out her slate. She can't rely on the palm trees being in the same place. And, of course, the tent in the picture is no longer there. But the shape of the ground, which is so close to rock here, might not have changed too much. She gets herself facing the right direction, then lowers the slate and looks around. She has that feeling she's felt before: the feeling that something here is off. It's almost as if a monster is about to leap out at her, as if it's about to rain, as if she can hear words on the wind. Something here isn't as it should be. The baby shifts in his sleep, and she pats his butt as she looks around.

Something's not--there are no sounds of people.

The memory hits her as if she's fallen into a deep lake. It rushes over her and jets up her nose and she can't tell which way is up.

The royal tent was a massive construction of blue and red fabric, taking five servants to set up, and fully furnished. She stood guard outside, trying her best not to be unbearably embarrassed for the noises coming from within. The bed rhythmically banged against a tent post, and the unerring beat was pierced by the heady moans of the prince’s visitor.

Goddess help her, it just _kept going_. She'd be impressed with his stamina if she stooped so low as to think about it. Instead, she clenched her fists in barely restrained fury. 

A pair of Gerudo passed her, giving her judgmental looks, as if she were the one being pounded into a mattress. 

The prolonged ring of the warning bell pulled her from her irritation, one of the other guards charging up to her. "Champion Zelda, a skirmish with the Yiga north of town. Get His Highness to safety immediately."

She jerked a nod, her sword already in her hand, her whole body poised for defense. 

There was a throaty groan at her back. 

The guard shot a discomforted look at the curtained door, a pitying look at Zelda, and bolted away.

Right. She would have to interrupt that.

She set her shoulders. She was a professional. It didn't matter what was happening inside that door, it was her job to keep the prince safe. She would not be appalled. She would not be flustered. No matter what state of undress. No matter what position. No matter where his mouth was or what face he was making. She had a job to do.

(Zelda does not want this memory. She tries to break free. She can’t find her way out.)

She snapped three resonant knocks against the tent frame beside the curtain before throwing it open. "Your Highness, the Yiga are—”

He was on the floor, sitting cross legged, a fan of playing cards in one hand, holding a slat at the foot of the bed with the other. His head snapped up to her with terrified eyes, and his constant slamming of the bed against the tent frame cut off. His visitor choked on her theatrical moan. She was beautiful with full lips and bright hair and a single card poised and ready to play. It was a seven of clubs. She slapped the rest of her cards against her chest as if covering something indecent. 

They were both fully dressed.

Zelda blinked at them once, then straightened and snapped, "The Yiga are attacking. We must get you to safety."

They scrambled to their feet, then tried to gather the playing cards to hide evidence of their nonsense.

"Goddess save you," she snapped, and stomped forward, giving the cards a swift kick to spread them across the floor. She grabbed the comforter on the bed and ripped it down, half crumpled on the floor. She quickly pulled three pins from his visitor's red hair, causing her to squeak. Then she spun on the prince, glaring at him and jerking his belt back and forth to unbuckle it as efficiently (and harshly) as possible. She ripped his shirt over his head before the belt even clunked to the floor.

He raised his eyebrows at her as he reappeared under the hem of his shirt. She couldn’t decipher the look he gave her. (She still can’t. What—)

She glared at him.

He almost dropped his shirt as she shoved it into his chest. "Come on," she snapped, yanking open the curtain and checking for danger.

He hurried behind her, pulling his shirt back over his head as they dashed off into the night, her mind spinning and her heart soaring.

The memory tries to throw her back out into the present. “But. No!” She hurls herself forward, blind, back into the deep, frantically grabbing at all the memories she can. “What was _that_?”

They come all at once, disjointed.

“What was that?” They sat atop a Gerudo ruin in the night. The same night? His hair was messy and his shirt unbelted.

He looked her straight in the eye. "Would you like to be treated like a stud horse all the time?"

_“What are you doing?” He was sitting by the cook pot, stirring something that might have been breakfast. She’d woken up in his tent alone and sat bolt upright in a panic that he was no longer beside her. She’d slept too late. She’d slipped in her duties. She hadn’t been protecting him. She’d grabbed for the nearest piece of clothing and her sword and tore out of the tent to find him. And there he was. She’d thought he was dead, and he was sitting there, giving her a look of confused amusement._

_A look that quickly turned heated._

_"You're wearing my prayer shirt.”_

_She looked down to see that she was. The white fabric fell to mid thigh._

_“Don’t scare me like that.”_

_He practically tackled her back into the tent._

What _was_ that? She has a flash of him picking out a laughing girl in the crowd at a big state dinner. He lifted his glass to his mouth and took a long gulp of wine.

She has a flash of him presenting a girl with a necklace. The morning sun glinted off the rubies set in gold. The girl squealed and pressed a kiss to his cheek. They bowed their heads together and whispered.

She has a flash of Urbosa leaning down to whisper to the prince, pointing at a beautiful girl across the party. “She’s a famous stage actress."

What _was_ that? “I know my duty. But,” he sighed, “I also know that..when I just go through the motions of having sex, when I just do it because I have to, I'm the farthest I ever feel from the Goddess. This doesn't feel right. It feels...cold."

"You're not doing it right if it feels cold."

What _was_ that? She has a flash of Link storming out of the king's office, passing where she's waiting for him at attention outside the door. He doesn’t look at her as he growls, "Get ready for a trip. We're visiting all the villages."

_He had the prayer tunic rucked up enough to grip her hip, his pants pulled only as low as necessary to sink into her completely, lighting her up from the inside. He liked it deep and slow, a constant build of electricity fizzling and rolling through her, making her skin tingle and spark, short circuiting the muscles in her arms, which spasmed and clung to him, short circuiting the muscles in her jaw into a silent cry of joy. The pray shirt stuck tacky to the sweat of her skin. Their hips rolled together, and she panted, high pitched and breathy, squeezing her eyes closed and digging her fingers into his back. "Link."_

"I think I can do it. The Goddess knows of my devotion. She loves Hyrule too much to doom us like this. If she can make a woman her Hero, she can give a man the sealing powers."

"No one ever said the Hero had to be a man."

"No," he leaned in and grinned at her. "Sometimes he's a little boy."

She covered his grin with her palm and shoved his face away, and he caught her hand to pull it from his face. And then he was just holding her hand, looking up at her with his openness and devotion that always made her so uncomfortable. "I feel warm with you."

“What is that?” she asked, as he presented her with what looked like a guardian part: a gear on an axel with a glowing ring around its center.

“A gift for you,” he said. “For your collection.”

She tried to hide her bashful smile.

“What is that?” he asked. He frowned at her. He didn’t want to go on this trip. They were in the field, the castle just in the distance, and she had a map spread out in the grass.

“It’s our itinerary for our tour of the villages.” She traced a path along the roads with her finger. “We can visit the Akkala settlements first.” But her finger skimmed straight past four villages, then made three circles around the Spring of Power. “Then we can cut through the Lanyaru snowfield.” Her finger headed up the mountain and circled. “Then down into Faron.” She avoided Hateno completely, heading straight over the suspension bridge into Faron, then bypassing Lurelin to head straight into the jungle and circle the Spring of Courage.

His eyes widened, his previous agitation washed away by shock. And then excitement.

"Really?"

"I think that's the best plan to assure that the Goddess’ power is brought to Hyrule. Don’t you agree?”

He beamed at her.

_He pushed back, just enough to look her in the eye, just enough to look down on her, wearing his shirt. As if she’d claimed some part of him, or he’d claimed some part of her. Maybe he had._

_"I hear the Goddess' voice when you say my name."_

_She warped a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him in, just shy of a kiss, close enough that her tongue flicks over his lower lip as she says his name. “Link."_

_He came so hard that she saw stars._

"I feel warm with you."

She froze. She hated it when he flirted with her like that, hated the way her heart leapt that he might mean it, then fell knowing he didn't.

She scoffed and pulled away. "That is the worst line I've ever heard."

He sat back up and looked back out to the desert. "It is," he agreed. "I'll have a better one next time."

"Don't bother.”

He frowned at her. 

"You don't have to put on an act with me. Just drop it.”

"Right,” he said. And the flirty tone was gone from his voice. “If that’s what you want.”

“What are you doing?” she asked. Trembling fear in her voice.

They were on a bridge, and he was on his knees in front of her, clinging to her hand, pleading with his eyes.

“What are you doing?!” It was raining, and the pain was overwhelming, stabbing and burning all through her body. Her legs trembled. She lifted blurry eyes through the rain that streamed down her face and the loose hair covering her eyes. She looked up and faced the guardian. Two guardians. Three. A thousand. “Zelda! No!”

“Zelda!”

She is thrown out of the memories. She stumbles and she’s back in the desert. During the day. Just before sun down.

She blinks at the spot where the memory rested. It looks so innocuous. 

She falls to her knees as her mind scrambles.

She—she wasn’t a notch on his belt. She wasn’t a convenient means to an end. He—he—it didn’t make sense! She’d been bereft knowing that her feelings were one sided. She’d tried to push them deep and carry on with her mission. Have her baby. Not be mad at Link. Not miss Link too terribly.

But now—now—

“No. I would have remembered.”

“Remembered what?” Claree says.

“These memories are wrong,” she insists. She shakes her head, trying to find the lie. All she shakes loose from her head is a line from Kass’ song.

Paya’s hold is tight around her arm, almost bruising. It brings her back to herself enough to look up at the Sheikahs’ terrified faces.

“What did you see?”

Zelda swallows. Her eyes are wide in fear, because what does this mean? What else isn’t she remembering? She thought a surprise pregnancy would be the end of it.

There was someone who loved her. Maybe he’d loved her all this time. 

And she’d forgotten.

And he must know she’s forgotten. Everything she’s told him from atop the towers, and she never spoke to him as if she remembered. He’s holding back the Calamity, and she’s thought the worst of him for months. 

Does he still love her?

She answers Claree in a whisper. “I think Link cared for me.”

Claree and Paya blink in confusion. Paya’s grip on her arm eases, and she licks her lips in preparation to say something that’s stuck deep in her throat.

“Of course he did,” Claree says. Then she smiles. “Who wouldn’t?”

#

Zelda thinks it's understandable that she's distracted as she works to activate the last two terminals. It takes a bit longer than it should because she keeps making careless errors. It doesn't matter of course, as there are no monsters and no one is watching her be ridiculous and the only timeline she's on its the baby's feeding schedule. 

But she cannot bring this kind of foolishness into battle against a blight.

She heads back to town and does some meditation exercises. She sets the baby on a blanket under a mobile Riju has commissioned for him and runs through her sword forms and runs through her sword forms and runs through her sword forms until she's sweating and focused. 

Paya is vibrating with worry. Claree doesn't see what the big deal is. Riju pops her head in a frowns. A few minutes later, Buliara pops her head in to give her a concerned look and ask if she wants a sparring partner. 

It's fine. She's just not going to think about Link at all until this is over.

After feeding the baby, she warps to Vah Naboris, her shoulders back and her head high and her eyes set on the main control unit.

Before she can lift her slate to activate it, Urbosa's voice rings through the room. "Perhaps...you should wait."

"Wait?" Zelda says. No. She has to free Urbosa's spirit. She has to go to the castle and defeat the Calamity once and for all, and to do that, she needs to defeat whatever blight haunts this Divine Beast.

"Do not underestimate the blight who defeated me one hundred years ago."

Zelda takes a deep breath. She doesn't appreciate how everyone is trying to crush her confidence. She doesn't appreciate that an incorporeal spirit can tell she's not in top condition. She doesn't appreciate that she's _not_ in top condition. If she denies it hard enough, the strength of her denial can make it true. She can push herself through this. She's not thinking about Link. She's not thinking about how tired she is. She is a Champion, and she has let the corruption of the Divine Beasts go on long enough.

She hesitates, pulls the slate back slightly. She's not afraid, per se, but Urbosa's warning has her nervous, and nerves lead to mistakes. She closes her eyes to center herself.

Urbosa's voice says, "You'll need speed," and Zelda digs into her supplies to find some hasty fruit and mushroom mix. Fleet lotus seeds are some of her favorite snacks, and she often saves this dish as a reward. Eating it before battle puts some of her anxieties to rest.

She slaps the slate onto the control console and jerks back as malice erupts out of it. She scampers away enough to get a full view of the blight. In one hand he holds a giant, ancient weapon like a cross between a Gerudo scimitar and a shepherd's crook. In the other he holds a shield. His hair hangs down nearly to his base, giving his look a heaviness at odds with Urbosa's warning. He has a single blue eye and a headpiece that juts upwards, mirroring the shape of his blade.

If he tries to stab her with his hat, she's going to be mad.

He lifts his blade into the air, and she is completely unsurprised when lightning rains down around them.

Thunderblight Ganon.

For a moment he hangs there. She shoots at him, half knowing he'll dodge, but at least she'll come out fighting. He vanishes. She jerks left as he blinks in and out of focus, moving in a rapid zig-zags so quick she has no hope of following them. This must be how the baby feels unable to follow objects with his eyes. The blight is fast. So fast. And she can feel her slowness like a weight, which grows with the sinking of her heart.

He's before her, in front of her face, his blade pulled back and falling, and she throws herself out of the way, avoiding the blade but missing getting in a hit of her own. The slash sails over her head, a sharp wind crashing against the far wall, and she scrambles to her feet, but he's gone again.   
  


She swears, then rolls her shoulders and readies herself for his next attack, watches the room from her peripheral vision. When he zips in again, she's ready for him, leaping back into a flip to sail over his slash, planting her feet on the landing to spring forward into the opening he's left her. It's a solid maneuver, and she can surely pull it off a few more times. There's a pattern to fighting blights, and now that she's found it, she can settle in.

When he blinks away, she readies for he next attack.

Instead, there's a noise behind her, and she turns to see him. Right there. Blade lifted to plunge down. She throws herself to the side, avoiding the blade, but not the buffeting shard of air. It cuts at her side and sends her to the floor. Before she can stand, the blight is over her again, and she's rolling out of the way.

She was wrong about there being a pattern.

A dozen metal beams fall from the sky, impaling into the floor. She has to roll to dodge one, but then she gets her feet back under her. The blight is in the center of the room, high over her head. He lifts his sword and electricity builds in the air. The nearest spike fizzles and crackles. It's a lightning rod, and it'll fry her if she doesn't move. Now.

Or.

She holds her ground, pulls out the slate and grabs the spike with mangesis. Static builds so thick in the air, it's hard to breathe. She jerks the spike from the ground and slaps it against the blight, one way, then the other, and then hurls it, impaling him through the chest just as he brings down the lightning. He falls to the floor, electrified, and she rushes in to beat on him. She feels a light boost of hope as he rises slowly, the spike still embedded in his chest. He's a touch slower as he zig-zags, barely noticeable, but enough. Enough.

He zips in, and she backflips, and she rushes in—and something snaps in her abdomen, a burst of pain. She screams, but keeps going, her vision blacking out even as she slashes at the blight's weak point.

He vanishes, and she stumbles, gripping her belly with her free hand.

He's back above her, calling down lightning, and she pulls out her slate, tearing out another spike and aiming it to stab at him. The ground jerks under her feet. She loses control of the magnesis, and the spike clatters to the ground as the rolling barrel of the room churns under her, pulling her deeper into the net of lightning rods. She runs, trying to use the turn of the room to add to her speed and get her through to the other side, but then the ground is shifting again, back the other way, pulling her backwards, and she's not quite outside the net when the lightning strikes.

Electricity surges through her body, throwing her to the floor, where she distantly feels her head smack against the ground. She stands weakened and shaking, and when he darts in again, she's too slow. She dodges back, but not fast enough. His sword rips under her chest plate. Her abdomen explodes in pain, exploding outward, stabbing through her arms, locking all her muscles. The dangling ends of her tabard are torn away. She's blown backwards, smacking hard against the floor. She can't see, can't move. She chokes on what can't be blood. It can't be.

The blight slices her again. And again. She can't move.

Green light swirls around her, and it's cool and healing, and she fights it. She can't go to the spirit realm. Not yet. This isn't where she dies. She has too much left to do. Her baby. Link. Hyrule.

She can almost hear Mipha's voice, but can't tell what she says.

And then her vision clears. Her wounds are numb.

And the blight is standing over her. Sword raised and rearing higher.

She locks him in place with stasis, and in the few seconds she has, she shoves the slate against his eye.

The blight jerks. He shudders. Trembling jerks runs over his body in electric waves, in pulses. The orange glow of the Sheikah tech flickers, flashes. Blue for a split second. The malice of his arms churns angrily, fighting back against the chugging reprogramming in her hand. She presses harder with the slate and stabs the Master Sword into the malice of his chest. The malice sizzles, it bulges and bubbles. The bubbles pop, splatter, sting against her face. The malice hisses into a vapor of stinking mist, and she tries not to breathe, but she's gasping through the pain that threatens to steal the last of her strength.

His body seizes, his head thrown back as he burns bright blue, the malice bursting in surrender.

The blight sags against her, held up by her sword and the spike still protruding from his chest. She heaves to throw the blight off, and it topples to the floor beside her, its chest heaving.

She cringes as she struggles to her feet. The blight's skin is a pale gray. Its hair has turned white with a shade of green that reminds her of Farosh. It reminds her of one of the monks except he still has Sheikah tech adhered to its body. She doesn't trust that it's on her side.

It reaches weakly for its chest, where the stake is, dark blood oozing from duel puncture wounds.   
There's something nauseatingly pathetic in the movement.

She hesitates. Then she lifts the slate and uses magnesis to yank the stake out. She digs for her flameblade. The blight flinches when she kneels beside him, and she holds his bladed arm down with her weight. With the flat of her flameblade, she cauterizes the two wounds. He screams like the grinding of machine parts and the wailing of spirits, unearthly and haunting, his back arching off the floor as he tries to throw her, but she holds tight and rides it out.

When the wounds seal, she topples off him, sitting on the floor in a slump as they both try to catch their breath.

When he moves again, she hurries to her feet, sword at the ready. She's sweating rather badly and her abdomen stabs in three places every time she breathes.

He floats before her and touches his chest gently. The wounds look bad, but they already look as if they're beginning to heal. He looks up at her with his single eye, and she tightens her stance. A green shudder of electricity ripples over his body.

He bows his head, slow and deliberate. And then vanishes.

She tenses, ready for him to zip in from behind.

He left his shield on the ground.

"Making friends, I see."

She spins to face the spirit of Urbosa.

"I'd prefer, of course, if you'd killed it, but," she sighs, "I suppose that thanks to your quick thinking, my spirit is free and Naboris is ours."

Zelda sags. She leans on her flame blade. Her body is screaming, and her arms are shaking. "Something healed me."

She doesn't know why she says that. No part of her brain thinks Urbosa would know what happened. But she's still badly hurt and not making sense.

Urbosa raises an eyebrow. "It seems like a gift from another Champion."

"But..." Zelda shakes her head. "Mipha didn't give me anything."

"Didn't she? Perhaps her gift was used elsewhere until recently."

Zelda's slow. She's so slow. "She was protecting the baby?”

"Is this a hint that you're waiting for your gift from me?"

Zelda is too slow to answer.

Urbosa laughs. "It has come to be known as Urbosa's Fury. I'm sure you'll find a use for it." Urbosa throws out her chest and draws her hands together, a glowing yellow ball of energy condensing before her. It blasts into Zelda's chest, and embarrassingly enough, she almost stumbles back. When she lifts her head, thunder rumbles around her.

"The prince," Zelda says. And then stops. 

Urbosa was one of Link’s closest confidants. She has the answers Zelda seeks. And yet...hearing it from Urbosa would be wrong. 

Zelda knows the truth. And she'll hear it from Link soon.

She swallows. “He doesn’t need reining in.”

Urbosa tilts her head. A smile plays at the corner of her lips. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I’ll be in better shape when I face Ganon. I promise."

Urbosa’s smile turns sad. "Determined as always. Just remember that you live for more than yourself now. The prince needs you. Hyrule needs you...Your son needs you."

Zelda takes a deep breath, the jaws of guilt closing around her.

"When you see Link," Urbosa says, already starting to fade away, "Tell him...that none of this was his fault. He'll believe you."

Zelda nods as she's warped away, straight into the city. She can see Naboris in the distance, scaling the mountains to the east. She sways on her feet and collapses into Paya's arms.  
  



	9. Chapter 9

There are rumors around town of a thunder spirit, traveling over the dunes in the moonlight. It glows eerily and moves fast as lightning. No one has seen it up close, but enough people agree on its general form for Zelda to know none of them are lying.

In the spirit's wake, people find strange formations in the desert: sand struck by lightning to form branching, glass tubes with sand inside. They look like tree branches. There's already a wave of new art incorporating them, turning them into head pieces and statues. The Gerudo drain them and fill them with colored sand. Riju commissions a crown that makes her look a bit like a deer.

Zelda says nothing.

#

Zelda spends a full week in Gerudo Town before they even begin day trips into the desert to cleanse newly revealed shrines. Paya urges caution. The prince has waited this long, he can wait a bit longer to ensure victory. Claree urges that they should leave the desert, head back to Kakariko, and train for an assault on the castle. Now that the Divine Beasts are free and she has the sword, there's no point in delaying by cleansing more shrines.

But after her miserable performance with the blight, Zelda hardly trusts herself to take on Ganon. She needs to rest like Paya said (Paya nods as haughtily as is within her power), and then she needs to get stronger by clearing more shrines, and _then_ she'll go to Kakariko. Claree throws her arms in the air and says, "Fine. But don't over-exert yourself fighting those creepy monks!"

She doesn't over-exert. She trains with the Gerudo guards, and the baby uncurls enough for her to reconfigure the front pack for his legs to stick out. Then she wins the sand seal rally and a shrine appears, and then she fights a monk, and then Riju insists on a spa day. 

She trains with the Gerudo guards, and the baby seems to know Paya and Claree's face's in addition to Zelda's. Then she and the Sheikah ride sand seals north in the night, following the directions of the silent swordswomen, and then she fights a monk, and then Riju insists on a spread of frozen fruit cubes. 

She trains with the Gerudo guards, and then she and the Sheikah head to the Seven Heroines, where they set up a cute camp and Zelda climbs around doing a puzzle, and then she fights a monk. In the shade of one heroine's feet, the baby smiles at her for the first time, and her heart melts and she shouts for Paya and Claree to come look until he does it again. 

From there they can see another shrine to the south, but opening it requires that they get a sun-stroked Gerudo to get off the pedestal, which is shockingly difficult. They have to warp into town, convince the bar owner to teach Zelda the recipe for a noble pursuit, then get all the ingredients to make a very large batch. They rush back through the desert, and the woman peels herself off the pedestal enough to help them mix the drinks and then drink the drinks. She and Claree get drunk. Zelda fights a monk. 

She can see that there's a labyrinth on her map, and that means a shrine with a nice place to camp. When night falls, she climbs onto the top of the wall after clearing out the monsters and looks out at the desert. In the distance, there's a light, glowing like Farosh, but smaller and skimming over the ridges of the dunes. She feels chilled, and sends up a prayer to the Goddess that the new spirit of the desert will find peace and not hurt anyone. Zelda drops down and fights another monk. 

When they leave the desert, they do so slowly, taking their time and letting Zelda take on all the shrines they skipped through Gerudo canyon. But then it's an easy trip to Kakriko, where they're greeted like heroes and everyone wants to hold the baby. She trains with the Sheikah guards and makes short trips to gather supplies to upgrade her armor as much as she can and then she cooks like a woman possessed to be ready for the castle.

"What materials do you need?" Impa asks in a huff.

Zelda explains how many keese wings she wishes she had. Two days later, she's presented with a pile of keese wings, collected by Sheikah warriors.

The baby has started grabbing things, mostly noses and ears and hair, and Zelda is going to chop all her hair off the day after she kills Ganon. For now she needs it long enough to pull back and keep it out of her way. The baby sleeps for a miraculous six hours when he goes down a bit after sunset, meaning Zelda sleeps for six hours and feels intensely strange when she wakes up. After a few days of this, she realizes that the feeling is "alertness" and they've been such strangers lately that she didn't recognize it.

When it becomes clear that this is the baby's new schedule, she ups her training, having the Sheikah fight her two-on-one, three-on-one, four-on-one, fight her with her frostblade, and fight her with the full extent of their magic. She loans Claree her slate and has her use the runes on her while she fights Paya. She has them throw projectiles at her so she can practice bouncing them back. She exercises her leg and abdominal muscles until she can back-flip comfortably.

Impa has sketched plans of the castle so that Zelda can plan. She stares at it while she feeds the baby. They discuss her plan of attack at length—slipping in through the docks, gliding over the moat from the west—but she finally decides to walk in through the front door. 

When she leaves, she leaves alone, kissing her baby, whose settled in for his long sleep, on the head and praying over him and begging Paya to promise her that she'll look after him should anything—

Paya refuses.

Zelda hugs her too tightly.

She warps to the quarry near the castle as the sun sets, and slips past the patrolling guardians stalking the ruins of Castle Town. She doesn’t want to waste time and energy on them, and ends up halfway down the slope into the moat to avoid them. Her feet sink into the muck on the moat’s bank. The castle looms in a swirl of magenta in the night, and she finds herself looking at it as little as possible. There’s a sound in the air, a low whistle like dry wind through hollow bones.

When she reaches the bridge over the moat, she looks around and pulls herself over the side rather than climb up the slope and enter as if she’s been invited. The banners are still hanging, heavy with a century of dirt and flapping slowly against their poles. She faces the castle with its spires reaching towards the clouds of malice. She takes a deep breath and walks on.

There’s something about the gray stone of the bridge, glowing white under the moon. It tickles at something in her mind. She finds herself slowing, and then stopping. She shakes her head with a frown.

She looks around to see if there are guardians, then takes out her slate, pulling up the final picture.

And here she is. The gatehouse, the castle's facade, the wind on her face, and the sound of horse hooves—The memory hits her as though she's been punched.

She walked, leading her horse with Link at her side, slightly in front of her as was customary. They would have to slip back into their proper roles now that they were out of the wild. They could have been riding onto the castle grounds, but they prolonged the trip instead. They dithered. They came to the halfway point of the bridge, and Link stopped. His grip tightened on his reins. 

When he turned to her, his eyes were desperate, pleading. He dropped his horse's reins and took her hands, so sudden that she took a step back.

"Zelda. I—I can't keep doing this."

It was as if she'd been stabbed. But what was she expecting? She swallowed hard. They were half way across the bridge and she knew her place. "Of course. We'll just—We'll—Of course." She pulled her hands from his.

He snatched them back. "No! No. I can't keep pretending. I want to be with you. Only you." His voice dropped to a murmur. "It's always been you."

She sucked in a breath.

And then he dropped to one knee, still holding her hands. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. Trembling fear in her voice.

His eyes were pleading. “Say yes, and I'll march in there and tell my father exactly what I think of his plans for my life."

She wasn't breathing. (Is she breathing now?)

"Zelda, I'll fight for you. Just say yes."

Her lips parted, but no sound came out. It wouldn't be allowed. She wasn't noble, and she had a job to do that meant she couldn’t— His father would never allow him to cut off his options like this. The country wouldn't allow him to cut off his options like this. Screwing her was fine, but—but—

How dare he tempt her like this!

His eyes were pleading. His lips pressed hard against her knuckles. He was painfully handsome.

She loved him so much it hurt.

Her thumb brushed over his lower lip, and his breath shuddered. He looked hopeful. He was always so hopeful, as if anything were possible. Maybe it was.

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she let him drag her along with him. 

He'd fight for her. He wanted her. It had always been her.

His face broke into a grin. The sun was so bright that it was hard to look at him.

"Prince Link!"

Her gaze snapped over his head, and her eyes widened in panic at the sight of the king and a half dozen guards stomping towards them.

It would not be allowed.

Link glared over his shoulder, and turned back to her. "Say yes."

"Prince Link!"

She tugged him to his feet and dropped into her own kneel at the king's approach. Link huffed and spun on his father. "I need a minute."

"You've seduced your guard enough."

Zelda winced, a knife twisting in her gut.

"She's the Champion of Hyrule and deserves respect," Link said.

"You want to speak to me about respect when you've spent the past month neglecting your duty to your country and playing at being a priest. Yes, I am aware that you visited none of the villages on your itinerary. I'm aware that you dragged the Champion of Hyrule along on your little act of rebellion and most likely ordered her to lie to her sovereign. So which one of us is showing her respect?"

Link said nothing. His fist clenched at his side.

"This is not a game," the king snapped. "The lives of thousands rest in your hands and you place your faith in hoping for a miracle. The Goddess has abandoned us, and its time we ensured our own survival."

"Maybe she's abandoned us because this is the reverence you show her.”

"Enough. I am finished with your recklessness and your insolence. You will go on the trip again, and this time you will take a full entourage to ensure you do your duty. And entourage who won't be seduced into indulging you."

Zelda feels it when the words are aimed at her: ”I expected you to have some strength of will."

The king spun away and shouted over his shoulder, "You leave again tomorrow. The Hylian Champion will stay here."

Zelda is sucked out of the memory and lands gasping on the bridge leading to the castle.

He'd...He'd asked her to marry him. Right? Didn't he? He'd asked, and she would have said yes. She would have. She feels it in her blood.

Her heart is pounding so hard, she feels dizzy. She shakes her head, and with trembling fingers she warps to Kakariko.

The village is quiet, a thread of tension in the air. Everyone knows where she’s gone, but they hardly expect her back so soon. She throws herself off the hill, paraglides over the town, and lands on Impa’s porch, pushing herself through the door. Paya and Impa snap up from a late dinner. "We—We weren't expecting you back for—for hours. Is everything o-okay?"

Impa has a spoon full of soup half way to her mouth. ”Zelda? What's wrong?"

"I..." Why did she come here? She stopped her assault on the castle before she even started. And for what? Impa won’t care. Paya will give her a pitying look, but it’s sent her head spinning, and she needs help. She needs help. “I found the last memory."

Impa perks at that. She lowers her spoon and sits up a bit straighter. "Ahhh. And what did you see?"

Zelda swallows. "He asked me to marry him."

Impa's eyebrows lift, but she doesn't gasp, she doesn't lean forward and shout, "He did _what_?!"

Instead, she asks, "Did he?"

Zelda nods stupidly. "I...I wasn't prepared for that."

"Yes, I imagine so."

Zelda wants to slip into the slow bounce she uses to soothe the baby. She wants to hold her baby. She wants to soothe herself.

"What will you do now?" Impa asks.

Zelda shrugs desperately. “I don't know. I just—I need to say it outloud.”

Impa nods. "He loved you a great deal."

“I…I suppose he did." It's a like a sun rise. It comes slowly, ever brightening, but hard to tell the brightening change from one moment to the next.

"I think it's time then.” Slowly, Impa rises to her feet and then hops down from her stack of pillows. Paya hurries to help her, but Impa waves her off. She walks slowly to the far wall and gestures Zelda to join her beside a drab painting. "The prince gave me specific instructions to wait to show you this. This...is the final picture."

She recognizes it, of course. It's Blatchery Plain on the road outside Fort Hateno. The decayed guardians in the image seem ominous. It looks as if it’s about to rain. She feels a prickle at the back of her neck.

She swallows and nods. She looks at Impa and Paya, unsure if she should rush straight to the memory or let it wait. Let this last memory settle.

“D-do you want me to g-go with you?” Paya asks.

Go. She needs to go. She needs to go now. Before the castle. Before the baby wakes up.

“No. I’m…I’m fine.”

Impa reaches out to stroke her arm. “It’s natural to be shaken.”

“Is it?”

Impa shrugs, and the lightness returns to her voice. “I assume it would be, but I don’t know of anyone who’s ever been in your situation before.”

Zelda almost laughs. She pulls Impa in for a hug. Then Paya. 

She warps to the stable across the plain and takes out a horse, riding it into the night. The dark has a chill to it, the air thick with oncoming rain. She slows as the fort comes into view, slowing and slowing until she slips off her horse. It was night in the painting too.

Her boot squishes in the mud, and she looks down to check her steps. When she looks up she's facing a guardian. 

Pain rips through her body.

It was raining, the rain pelting against her face, pinging off her armor. There were burns in stripes across her body, fire and ice with every thick beat of her heart. It felt as if chunks were missing from her flesh. Her vision blurred, but maybe that was the water in her eyes. She wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist, her sword still in her hand, and the movement of lifting her sword even that much made her side scream. It was hard to tell if the dampness there was rain or blood.

Link pulled at her arm. "Zelda, we need to _run_."

But there were a half dozen red dots on her chest, and the stomping of guardians converging on them. There was no running. Her legs wouldn't move fast enough. There was only keeping herself between the guardians and Link.

"Go," she said, and it tasted like blood. She could take this round of blasts, and he would have time. 

He didn't hear her.

“What are you doing?! Zelda!" He grabbed at her waist as if he'd drag her away.

The first guardian shot. She braced her shield, knowing the blast would explode against it. Link's hand shot past her face, out in front of her.

"No!"

There was a light, so bright her eyes squeezed closed. The blast from the guardian never landed, and she squinted open her eyes to see the triangles on the back of Link's hand, to see the light grow brighter, and then explode out in a golden dome around them, blasting away the guardians, which flickered and died. Silence fell like a stone with the sudden end of the explosion, with the absence of guardian noises. 

The rain was still loud, still far too heavy, weighing her down. Her body still screamed.

She collapsed into Link's arms. And then he was lying her on the ground, cradling her. "Zelda?" 

He did it. She grinned up at him. He _did it_. He was right. She was so proud.

He looked in awe and fear at his hand, then sucked in a breath and pressed it to her stomach. She flinched, and then cried out. The light didn't come again. 

"No. No no. Zelda?"

He lifted her hand to his lips, squeezing his eyes closed and holding her knuckles to his lips.

"Yes," she said. It was quiet.

His eyes snapped open and he lowered his head closer.

"Yes."

And then she died.

And it feels as if she grows taller, as if her mind opens like a flower, each petal peeling back, and suddenly she can see it all so clearly.

She remembers the soft tissue between the bones of her memories. She remembers that the sky turned red and she rushed into the castle, fighting her way through guardians, even as more fell into place behind her. She fought her way to Link's room, then grabbed his arm and dragged him and his half dozen guards back out. She remembers Link catching her looking slightly too long at the crystal bowl of hard candies. They were in a sitting room while he entertained some nobles over fancy tea and she stood guard silently. He lifted an eyebrow at her, and she flushed and looked away, and he slipped her a hard candy every time he passed her for the next week. She remembers how often he would visit the tech lab, just because she loved it. She remembers how Purah (Purah! With a stripe of red in her hair!) scoffing that they were back again, and that the prince was going to understand the tech better than even Robbie. She remembers Link stroking at her thigh, giving it a bemused look. "It's just funny that you're so soft under all that armor." She tried to roll away, faking a huff, but he grabbed her leg and pulled her back, hiking it over his hip. She giggled against his lips, and he said, "I like your soft places."

She remembers her knighting ceremony, how cold the floor was against her knee, how heavy the sword was against her shoulder. She remembers pulling the Master Sword for the first time and how the Deku tree apologized for her heavy burden. She remembers how her platoon used to fear her asa bad omen and later rib her when she was assigned as Link's personal guard. She remembers her father, and how he taught her to use a spear before he taught her to use a sword. She remembers how Impa would throw her head back and belly laugh. She remembers Daruk trying to feed her a rock and Link trying to convince her that it was fine as long as you put enough spice on it. She remembers Mipha trying to teach her to swim, and Zelda deciding that it would be easier to just grab onto Mipha's ankle and be dragged along behind her. She remembers baby Sidon and how for a while his teeth didn't fit in his mouth. She remembers Daruk's son, who was always grumpy. She remembers fighting a lynel when she was twelve and how her father fainted when she came home bloody and bruised, with a savage lynel sword on her back.

Zelda opens her eyes, and she's standing in the night, the air heavy with the promise of a rain that will wash away the malice that has clawed its way into the flesh of Hyrule. She opens her eyes, standing taller than she has since she woke, breathing easier than she has since long before she died.

Her name is Zelda, and she's twenty-two years old, or 122 years old depending how you count. She is the Hylian Champion and bearer of the Master Sword. And tomorrow she will defeat the Calamity.


	10. Chapter 10

Zelda sets out the next day with a new plan. 

She warps to the quarry and heads south, away from the castle. Nearby, there's a fork in a road that no one has traveled in a century, and she drops into a crouch at the top of the ridge and watches the lonely stalker prowl around below her. She shifts her position slightly and waits for it to get as close as possible, waits for it to look the other way. Then she pops up and leaps, paragliding over the guardian. It notices her, locks onto her, but she drops from the sky and locks it in place with stasis as she falls. She barely slows her fall—there's no time—and hits the ground rolling between two of its legs legs and under it, slapping the slate to its underside as the stasis breaks. The stalker swivels over her, stomping back and forth as it tries to make sense of her disappearance. Then there's a clunk from deep inside it as its programming stutters. Its lights flutter and its legs tremble, and with a deep _goong_ she can feel in her chest, it turns blue.

She pops out from beneath it and rubs its side as if she's praising a horse.

One down.

She has it shoot a few decayed guardians, but at the edge of town there's another stalker. She hides behind her new friend until they reach a better hiding spot, and then she sends her guardian some distance away. The enemy guardian continues its patrol route, towards the town wall, then back towards them. It looks at her guardian, then ignores it. Or at least it does until her guardian fires on it. She doesn't hit it. She doesn't want it damaged. But the enemy guardian's programming is triggered, and it goes on alert, scurrying towards her friend, it's laser charging, all its focus away from her. She charges toward it and doesn't even have to freeze it with stasis to slide underneath and win it back to her side.

And now she has two.

The same distraction maneuver works fro the third guardian. But for the fourth, she has her guardians stomp up to the enemy, corner it, pin it, and flip it onto its side, holding it down as it beeps wildly, its legs flailing and its laser charging. She freezes it just so it won't shoot her guardians, but all she has to to is lean in and reprogram it, her free hand pressed to its rough underside as if she can soothe it.

Her guardians help it gently back to its feet.

And then it's time to feed the baby. She sends her team back to the shrine to wait for her and warps back to Kakariko, where she finds that the Sheikah have moved a cookpot up the hill. They've set up blankets as if it's a picnic, and have placed throw pillows for some of the older Sheikah who have made it up the hill. It's like a small festival, centered around the baby, who's on his back, kicking his legs and playing with a rattle. Everyone cheers when Zelda appears. She's given a spot to sit, and they hand her the baby, and a minute later, they give her some rice balls and a big glass of juice. They’re trying to get the baby to take a bit of diluted cow’s milk. Just in case she’s late. So far, he’s taken a little, but he would clearly rather not.

An hour later, she's back at the quarry. Her guardians stand around the shrine, their heads slowly moving back and forth. They make no sign that they've noticed her when she appears, but they follow her orders instantly when she has them march back to Castle Town. 

They continue with their overwhelm-and-take-down strategy of converting the guardians. It goes quickly, but it's inelegant. There's an incident where they injure one of the legs of a guardian they're pinning in place, and another incident where their target gets a shot off before they pin it. One of the guardians is hit, but it’s still active. There's another incident where a second enemy guardian comes upon them while they're working, but by then her army is large enough that they manage to subdue both with minimal damage.

After her third trip to Kakariko of the day, she has an army of a dozen guardians, and the sun is setting. It's time for the baby's long sleep, and time for Zelda to enter the castle.

She marches across the bridge with her army surrounding her. Their feet trample over the road, crushing decayed stones under their weight. They loom around her, their bodies three times her height and gliding. They bock her from view, but she glares up at the tallest tower, and is sure that the Calamity can see her from above. She's sure Link can see her.

The battle starts the second she steps off the bridge. Her fingers fly over the slate as she directs her army to shoot the turrets from the walls and the skywatchers from the air. It's a race to see who can power their lasers the quickest, but even then, she outnumbers the forces in the first courtyard, and even as blasts explode against the guardians beside her, another guardian is there to take its place, blasting away the enemy a split second later. He guardians scurry out, scrambling up the walls to slap the turrets aside with a swing of an arm. One of her guardians latches around a charging turret like an octopus, and they both topple over the side of the wall with a _boom_. A minute later, her guardian reappears, one of its legs missing and sparking. 

It the guard tower, there's a lynel. She leads the attack, leaping up onto one of her guardian's heads and jumping off, hitting the lynel with six arrows straight to the eye before she hits the ground. The lynel charges, and her guardians fire, and she dodges out of the way with a spin, grabbing the lynel by the mane and vaulting onto its back, where she hacks at its neck as it bucks beneath her. It manages to throw her, but the second she's clear, three guardians shoot it, and three more pile on top of it like ravenous beasts, tearing and stomping.

She collects the lynel's bow and sword.

They continue on. 

The road twisting up towards the sanctum is covered in malice. Zelda hops atop one of her guardians, and they charge straight through. The whole way iscrowded with turrets and skywatchers, which explode one after another, hit by two of her guardians at once, three of her guardians at once, until the last skywatcher hanging over the entrance to the sanctum is hit with the entire force of her army in a ball of fire that she hopes the Calamity can feel.

She stands for a moment, flanked by a force so strong that it's difficult to comprehend.

Then she pulls out her slate and orders them away. Back to the main gate. She's not going to hand the Calamity a weapon.

She doesn't need them to destroy the Calamity.

When her army is gone, she raises her head and steps inside.

The sanctum is befouled with magenta light and darkness. The smell of rot hangs thick in the air. She's been to so many ceremonies in this room. She knows the grandeur, the way music seemed to swell, echoing across the stone as if the movement of air were a choir hiding in the wings. But now the choir is replaced by a deep pulse, timed with the pulsing of the bulbous sack like a cocoon on the ceiling.

But there are also strands of light raining down.

"Link."

"Zelda. Zelda, I can't hold him." 

A laser bursts from the cocoon, cutting off Link's light. The blast carves across the ancient stone floor, through the stairs, across the walls. It veers towards Zelda, but she holds her ground and it blasts past her. Then a dozen lasers light the cocoon from the inside, carving it apart. It hisses and shrivels as a monster drops out, plopping wetly to the floor. It smells of sulfur and infection and rotting durians. Before the creature can rise, the floor that's been weakened by lasers shudders under the weight of the monster. 

The ground breaks apart in chunks, and they fall into the dark. Fall and fall into a cavernous tunnel bellow the castle. The Calamity lands hard in a cloud of dust as Zelda paraglides down, setting her feet and drawing her sword the second she lands. Through the smoke, she can see nothing but the glow of ancient tech: the flash of a glowing spear, the lights of lasers, the flash of arms moving, of some hulking form. The dust settles and the Calamity turns on her, and she can see it for the first time. 

It has so many legs. Arachnid more than the octorock-like guardians. Malice writhes over its body. It pierces her with malice-lit eyes set in a skull-like face surrounded by a mane of red hair.

A roar builds over their heads, the light shifting brighter, bluer. And then the rain of a thousand guardian lasers pours down on them through the hole in the ceiling. The Divine Beasts. The Calamity screams, and Zelda cowers back, throwing an arm over her eyes. It's so hot that her face feels raw. It's so bright that spots dance before her eyes when the attack finally ends. 

And yet the Calamity lives. It rolls its many shoulders and pushes itself up. It faces her—and she's so small in comparison to the attack that just came. She sets her shoulders. It lifts its axe.

And then flies at her.

It moves so much faster than something of its size should, swinging weapons that she recognizes from the blights. She ducks a swing of a fiery axe, leaps and plants her foot on the long stab of a spear, and ducks three quick shots from a canon, darting in close to its body to slice a half dozen times with her sword until it rears up and she rushes back. When it slams down, the floor beneath it explodes in a blue blast, and then Zelda's pushing in again. She breaks a block of ice and leaps back from a swinging blade, and parries the flaming axe as it sweeps towards her, throwing it back and throwing the Calamity off long enough to rush in and swipe again. 

It switches to swinging two blades at her at once, so she has to duck under one and block another with her shield, using her momentum to spin in, leap over a spear, and slice. She rushes away, and a half dozen blocks of ice fall towards her, and she hurries to break them _cash crash crash_ with the slate, and by the time she's done, the Calamity has its canon aimed at her, and she's lifting her shield to throw the blast back and then running in as it screams in pain, dealing more damage while it's stunned.

The battle goes on and on, and she's slicked with sweat, breathing as if she's running long distance. She has no idea if she's doing any damage at all. She thinks of her son, who must be hungry by now, and refocuses on killing the monster that stole her life.

The Calamity roars and a dozen flying turrets erupt from its back, more organic than Windblight Ganon's drones. She pulls out her bow to shoot at the first one as the Calamity roars again and a dozen lightning rods fall and embed in the floor. Electricity sparks in the air, and Zelda runs, runs, runs. And explosion behind her as the turrets fire. Another, another at her heels. 

And then lightning crashes into the cave. It careens through the hole in the roof and smashes hard against the ground, and it takes her a moment to realize it wasn't the Calamity that called down the thunder. The lightning rods tear from the ground, hover in the air, and then fly at the Calamity, embedding in a dozen places that spew malice. Zelda skids to a stop and spins to the figure standing in the center of the arena. 

The thunderblight holds up his sword. The Calamity erupts in lightning.

Zelda rushes in the second the electricity fizzles out. Behind her, there are explosions as the thunderblight zips around to slice through each of the drones. The Calamity claws at its back, trying to shave off the lightning rods buried in its flesh. Zelda grabs a leg and brings down her sword. With an unearthly scream, the leg comes off, along with the fiery axe at the end.

Zelda falls back, hauling the axe onto her shoulder. The thunderblight electrocutes the Calamity again, and then Zelda heaves the axe in a mighty swing, the dangling end of its arm still attached to the hilt, and slices through two more legs.

And then Zelda has its spear.

A ball of fire erupts around the Calamity, throwing her back so she bounces and rolls across the floor. When she pushes up, the Calamity is climbing up the wall, surrounded in a hardened molten shield. The thunderblight flies at him, popping in and out of sight as it slices at every angle.

It makes no difference to the Calamity.

The Calamity aims its canon at Zelda, and it charges, charges. Even as the thunderblight darts around, the Calamity's eyes are locked on her. She sets her feet and waits. Waits.

It fires and she aims it back, and the blast cuts through its shield. It falls to the ground, already twitching and screaming from the thunderblight's swings. Zelda stabs it a dozen times with the spear, then stabs it through the neck and switches to the Master Sword, vaulting onto its back, leaping into the air, and plunging the glowing blade into the Calamity's face, lifted to the sky in a scream.

She jumps clear as malice drips off it, then spews from its many wounds. It crawls, dragging itself forward, as if it wants to get in one last hit, but before it can reach her where she landed, it explodes in a burst of magenta. Malice swirls in the air. Is it coalescing into something new or dissipating away? It doesn't feel as if the battle's over. She and the thunderblight shift, ready to face whatever is coming. The smoke and debris of the Calamity rolls upward and rises up the hole in the ceiling.

She's suddenly wrapped in warmth. She's lifted off the ground, and she looks down to find herself glowing. Her usual teleportation is cold, and without that it's hard to recognize that the same thing is happening. She opens her eyes in Hyrule Field, standing beside a wild horse struck dumb by the swirling cloud of malice before them.

Link's voice rolls in her mind as hooved limbs form out of the malice, stomping so hard that the ground shakes. "The Calamity is the embodiment of an ancient evil. This is his pure, enraged form." Horns rise so far over her head that she has to crane her neck up to see. "If set free upon our world, the destruction will be unlike anything we've seen before." The cloud of malice coalesces into a form like a boar, and it lowers its head to glare at her.

A spot of light appears in the sky and lowers like a slow drop of sunlight. At first she thinks it's Link, but then its form takes shape. It's form is swooping, swirled in gold. Link's voice speeds up. "This is the bow of light—a powerful weapon in the face of evil." She takes it in her hands. It's warm.

She grits her teeth and swings onto the horse. As she rides towards it, a bright ball of power grows before the dark beast's face, then busts out, shifting from a wall of fire to a laser beam. She moves easily to the side, heat rolling past her.

"None of your attacks will get through on their own. I can pull back the malice in spots to give you a weak point to shoot."

Even as she comes around the beast's side, the monster doesn't move. Perhaps it's too big to move. It's too unwieldy and slow. 

But then hundreds of thin malice tentacles burst from its side, whipping through the air like spears. She pulls the horse into a rear, avoiding those that stab in front of them. A swipe with her sword severs the five more that would have impaled them where they stood. The dark beast looks at her over its shoulder. The shining, churning black of its muscles bunch as power glows before it. It leaps and spins, fast as a hurricane throwing up a wind that shoves at her, the tentacles flying over her head so close that she ducks, yanking the horse's head down. The beast lands with a bone deep thump that doesn't settle before the laser is flying towards her, and she's kicking the horse into a gallop. 

The poor horse is terrified, but it knows enough to _move_. She can barely control it as they circle around the dark beast's side where Link has marked three spots with glowing light and enormous spinning targets. She hits them easily, and the dark beast screams. It's tentacles jerk into the air, then crash down against the ground, and it's lucky that the horse has shied so far away because the crash leaves deep gouges in the ground.

The beast spins again, aiming another blast at her, but then it screeches, the sound far higher than expected, It's head is pulled back at an angle and it lifts a foot as though its been burned. Which it has. A dozen blue guardians swarm over the monster, climbing their way up its legs like tiny spiders, tearing at its flesh with burrowing claws, cutting the tentacles short with lasers that shoot into the night in a dozen different directions. 

She hauls the horse around and shoots the three glowing spots on the other side. The beast rears and several guardians fly into the air like thrown fleas. Zelda yanks the horse to the side to dodge one, which picks itself back up and scurries back into the fray. Others land too hard. Half buried in the ground, their lights go out.

The next circle lights under the beast's belly, and she has to sing a soothing song to the horse through her gritted teeth to get it to maneuver between its legs. The guardians keep the beast distracted as she shoots.

They blast out form under it before the spew of malice rains down on them, and she pulls the horse around as golden light shines from the beast's head. The flesh of its forehead pulls back to reveal a single eyeball. The guardians swarm at it, and Zelda throws herself off the back of her horse, pulling her bow in mid-air and firing.

The beast throws its head back and throws a point of light into the air, as if expelling it from its body. It's so bright that it takes her too long to see the form inside the light. His hair is ruffled by a wind that only he can feel. He slowly sinks to the ground, his hands clasped in prayer, rays like the sun bursting from his form. He glows against the dark malice that churns over Calamity Ganon's form, and the monster roars and writhes at the sight of him.

Link stares at the calamity for a long moment, facing it without emotion. Then he holds up a hand. A Triforce ten feet tall bursts before his palm, and the power of the Goddess builds, builds, builds, first a point of light and then growing into a sphere, a dome. It grows so wide that in engulfs the Calamity, even as the beast turns to smoke and speeds into the air. Fleeing. Desperate. Roaring. But the light sucks it in, pulls it down with chains of sunlight until it has gathered up all the beast's malice.

The light shrinks to a point.

And vanishes.

Link lowers his hand, and the blood red sky fades as the clouds clear into the the hush before a new dawn. The air takes on a freshness, a sweetness she hasn't felt anywhere but her memories.

He turns. Link is solid and present before her. The same wind that ruffles his hair brushes her face. He opens his eyes, and they lock on hers, and they are as blue as tomorrow's sky.

He's before her, and she's exhausted, and she might start sobbing, because they've done it, and she can't believe they've done it, and it's over.

His voice is rejoicing, longing, awed, and her knees go weak at the sound. "Zelda...We did it."

She takes a step, and then another, and then she's running, but it feels like falling, and he rushes towards her to sweep her up as she throws her arms around his shoulders—his shoulders! He's solid under her hands. He pulls her in tight at the waist, lifting her onto her toes, and he holds the back of her head, holding her so close, as if he's amazed she's solid too. She presses her nose to his neck, clinging to his shirt, and he buries his nose in her hair, breathing her in. "Zelda Zelda Zelda."

She pulls away enough to take his face in her hands, to stroke his cheeks and push back his bangs. There's a softness to his eyes and a smile on his lips. 

"You did so much," he says.

She bites her lip. "How much did you see?"

_I saw you fall off that cliff and bounce twice on the way down. I saw you waste two days collecting mushrooms while I was holding back the apocalypse. I saw you be sick every day for months. I saw the Thunderblight kill you._

He grins. It's a knowing, cheeky grin. He bows his head towards her and lowers his voice to share a secret. "I saw you waddle into the Yiga hideout, eat a bunch of bananas, and then have an epic battle with Kohga where you both tottered around and threw spiked balls at each other."

She glares at him. "I did not _waddle_."

He raises an eyebrow, because she most definitely did.

She huffs. “Well, I got him, so it hardly matters."

He grins wider and presses his forehead to hers. "It was the most impressive thing I've ever seen."

And he just watched her defeat Calamity Ganon, so that was saying something.

She can't stop touching him, running her hands over his face and shoulders, reassuring himself that he's not a dream.

Quietly, he asks, "How much do you remember?"

Because clearly, she had forgotten him. Forgotten them. Forgotten so much.

But he looks hopeful, and it coaxes a smile onto her face as she strokes her thumb over his cheek.

"I remember how badly you sing."

He scoffs, but she can feel the relief in his shoulders. “I’ll have you know, my singing voice has been called _melodious_ and _vibrant_."

"By who? Your loyal subjects?"

He starts singing, "Hylia, Hylia, give us a princess," until she drags him down into a kiss to make him stop. No, just to kiss him. He sags into it, and she doesn't know if she's warm because of the hope and relief that fills her chest, or because Link's lips are so alive against hers, or because the sun is rising.

He stays close when the kiss breaks, his nose still brushing hers. "Goddess. I missed you every day for a hundred years."

Tears prickle at her eyes. "I'm sorry," she gasps. "I'm so sorry I took so long."

"No, I'm sorry. I wasn't there for you. I should have been there for you."

"It's okay." She traces the line of his jaw with her knuckles, up to his eyes that crinkle at the corners when he gives her an adoring smile. "You're here now."

"Forever," he promises, turning to kiss her hand at his cheek. 

Her heart swells and then the tears start to fall.

She wipes at her eyes and tries to gather herself and clears her throat. He doesn’t let go of her. “There's someone I want you to meet."

His grin grows. It's blinding. But then she realizes that's because he's glowing again. His fingers squeeze at her waist and shoulder, and he ducks in to kiss her. “We should name him James. I've been calling him that in my head. James Hyrule has a ring to it."

She laughs and it comes out a sob. "James Revali Hyrule," she corrects.

"HA!"

"He has your eyes."

"He has your angry face."

"I know! I'm sorry! At least he has your eyelashes."

He kisses her again, as if he can't get enough, as if the reality that they've done it is finally sinking in.

"Do you want to have his naming first or get married first?" he asks.

She blushes, and lowers her face, because that's embarrassing and ridiculous. "I want breakfast first. And a bath. And a nap. And...I'm sorry, but we've missed two feedings, and if I don't get back to him soon, I might actually explode." She adjusts her chest plate, but it brings her no relief. She huffs. " _Then_ we can get married."

He laughs and threads his fingers through hers. "And then we'll name him."

"And then we'll name him," she agrees.

He kisses her again as the sun breaks over the eastern mountains.

  


* * *


End file.
